Slashdot Mirror

New submitter redhat_redneck writes "The U.S. and Canada has been experiencing a shortage of barium sulfate, which is used as contrast for upper and lower GI studies. It has reached the point where doctors are being asked not to order these exams except in emergencies, and some exams are being cancelled. Here's the letter that's been put out by the manufacturer. The longer this drags on, the more serious this issue becomes, eventually impacting patients and healthcare providers in both cost and quality of care. Some sources point to a dramatic drop in Chinese production. In their defense, it seems China is changing safety regulations. Medical use only make a fraction of the uses of barium sulfate, but it's going to be disproportionately affected by this shortage. We can't go back to our old contrast Thorotrast; it causes cancer. Does anyone know of alternatives to barium?"

ATKeiper writes "Thomas Kuhn's landmark book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions just turned fifty years old. In that book, Kuhn coined the expression 'paradigm shift' to describe revolutionary changes in scientific fields — such as the replacement of the geocentric understanding of the universe with the heliocentric model of the solar system. The book was hotly debated for claiming that different scientific paradigms were 'incommensurable,' which implied (for example) that Newton was no more right about gravity than Aristotle. A new essay in The New Atlantis revisits the controversy and asks whether the fact that Kuhn based his argument almost exclusively on physics means that it does not apply as well to major developments in biology or, for that matter, to the social sciences."

Hugh Pickens writes writes "ABC News reports that Indiana University Health Goshen Hospital has fired eight employees after they refused mandatory flu shots, stirring up controversy over which should come first: employee rights or patient safety. The fired nurses include Joyce Gingerich and Sue Schrock who filed appeals on religious grounds. 'I feel like in my personal faith walk, I have felt instructed not to get a flu vaccination, but it's also the whole matter of the right to choose what I put in my body...' adding that she has not had a flu vaccine for 30 years as a result of a choice she made because of her Christian faith. Over the last several years, hospitals have been moving toward mandatory vaccinations because many only have 60 percent vaccination rates says Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Schaffner adds that nurses in particular tend to be the most reluctant to get vaccinated among health care workers, 'There seems to be a persistent myth that you can get flu from a flu vaccine among nurses,' says Schaffner. 'They subject themselves to more influenza by not being immunized, and they certainly do not participate in putting patient safety first.' But Jane M. Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, says the scientific case for flu vaccine mandates is very weak and that there is no evidence showing that vaccinated workers are less likely to transmit virus. 'The scientific and religious concerns are in a sense backward,' says Orient. 'Advocates of the mandate are full of evangelical zeal and are quick to portray skeptics as wicked and selfish. It's like a secular religion, based on faith in vaccine efficacy and safety.'"

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Want to buy a 15,000-foot landing strip? How about a place to assemble rocket ships or a parachute-packing plant? Have we got a deal for you. The Orlando Sentinel reports that with the cleanup and wind-down of the shuttle program, NASA is quietly holding a going-out-of-business sale for the its space-shuttle facilities including Launch Pad 39A, where shuttles were launched; space in the Vehicle Assembly Building, the iconic 526-foot-tall structure first used to assemble Saturn V-Apollo rockets; the Orbiter Processing Facilities, essentially huge garages where the shuttles were maintained; Hangar N and its high-tech test equipment; the launch-control center; and various other buildings and chunks of undeveloped property. 'The facilities out here can't be in an abandoned state for long before they become unusable,' says Joyce Riquelme, NASA's director of KSC planning and development. 'So we're in a big push over the next few months to either have agreements for these facilities or not.' The process is mostly secret, because NASA has agreed to let bidders declare their proposals proprietary, keeping them out of the view of competitors and the public. Frank DiBello, thinks the most attractive facilities are those that can support launches that don't use the existing pads at KSC and adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. 'Anything that still has cleaning capabilities or satellite-processing capabilities, the parachute facility, the tile facility, the OPF, all three of them, they have real value to the next generation of space activity,' says Frank DiBello, President of Space Florida, an Independent Special District of the State of Florida, created to foster the growth and development of a sustainable and world-leading space industry in Florida. 'If the infrastructure helps you reach market, then it has value. If it doesn't, then it's just a building, it's just a launchpad, and nobody wants it.'"

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Want to buy a 15,000-foot landing strip? How about a place to assemble rocket ships or a parachute-packing plant? Have we got a deal for you. The Orlando Sentinel reports that with the cleanup and wind-down of the shuttle program, NASA is quietly holding a going-out-of-business sale for the its space-shuttle facilities including Launch Pad 39A, where shuttles were launched; space in the Vehicle Assembly Building, the iconic 526-foot-tall structure first used to assemble Saturn V-Apollo rockets; the Orbiter Processing Facilities, essentially huge garages where the shuttles were maintained; Hangar N and its high-tech test equipment; the launch-control center; and various other buildings and chunks of undeveloped property. 'The facilities out here can't be in an abandoned state for long before they become unusable,' says Joyce Riquelme, NASA's director of KSC planning and development. 'So we're in a big push over the next few months to either have agreements for these facilities or not.' The process is mostly secret, because NASA has agreed to let bidders declare their proposals proprietary, keeping them out of the view of competitors and the public. Frank DiBello, thinks the most attractive facilities are those that can support launches that don't use the existing pads at KSC and adjacent Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. 'Anything that still has cleaning capabilities or satellite-processing capabilities, the parachute facility, the tile facility, the OPF, all three of them, they have real value to the next generation of space activity,' says Frank DiBello, President of Space Florida, an Independent Special District of the State of Florida, created to foster the growth and development of a sustainable and world-leading space industry in Florida. 'If the infrastructure helps you reach market, then it has value. If it doesn't, then it's just a building, it's just a launchpad, and nobody wants it.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Al Jazeera plans to start an English-language channel available in more than 40 million U.S. homes, with newscasts emanating from both New York and Doha, Qatar. They announced a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore seven years ago. But the challenge will be persuading Americans to watch the award winning network with 71 bureaus around the world — an extremely tough proposition given the crowded television marketplace and the stereotypes about the channel that persist to this day. 'There are still people who will not watch it, who will say that it's a "terrorist network,"' says Philip Seib. 'Al Jazeera has to override that by providing quality news.' With a handful of exceptions, American cable and satellite distributors have mostly refused to carry Al Jazeera English since its inception in 2006. While the television sets of White House officials and lawmakers were tuned to the channel during the Arab Spring in 2011, ordinary Americans who wanted to watch had to find a live stream on the Internet. Al Jazeera's Robert Wheelock said, We offer an alternative. It's a broader coverage of news. It's a broader spectrum into countries that aren't traditionally covered.'"

This morning at 08:58 UTC a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck off the coast of southeastern Alaska. The depth was just shy of 10km. The quake occurred roughly 106km from the city of Craig and about 341km from the capital city of Juneau. A tsunami warning was issued shortly after the quake, but later canceled when it became apparent that sea level changes would be minor, with no widespread destructive wave. The observed tsunami was no more than six inches high. The earthquake was felt on land, shaking houses and tossing objects to the floor, but as yet there are no reports of injuries. The U.S. Geological Survey said, 'At the location of this earthquake, the Pacific plate is moving approximately northwestward with respect to the North America plate at a velocity of 51 mm/yr. This earthquake is likely associated with relative motion across the Queen Charlotte fault system offshore of British Columbia, Canada, which forms the major expression of the Pacific:North America plate boundary in this region. The surrounding area of the plate boundary has hosted 8 earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater over the past 40 years."

While he was vacationing with his wife, Kuro5hin founder Rusty Foster was killed — at least in the eyes of Facebook. NBC News details how it happened: a "pal" pranked both Foster and Facebook by notifying the social site of Foster's supposed death, providing as documentation the obituary of another, much older man by the same name. Getting the Facebook version of his life back took some doing; based on this article it seems much easier to convince Facebook that you're dead than that you're alive.

This year's Consumer Electronics Show has nearly arrived. Later today, I'll be hurtling (or perhaps just slogging) across the West Texas desert, bound for Vegas. CES is far too big an event to see very much of, no matter what: the endless aisles (highways!) of cheap laptop bags and e-cigarettes alone take up an incredible amount of floor space, but the good stuff takes up at least as much. The categories represented aren't necessarily new, but the trends vary each time: remote-controlled helicopters, from Parrot and others, have been been getting more capable for a few years running, along with 3D televisions, action cameras, ever-bigger displays, toys for kids, toys for adults, and the newest/slimmest/priciest/cheapest laptops and handhelds. Last year I had a chance to get close-up video views at Ubuntu TV and the successfully crowdfunded TouchFire keyboard, as well as interviews with John Ryan of Pixel Qi and Raspberry Pi instigator Eben Upton. I'll be on the lookout for some of my usual obsessions (open source in consumer products, bright LED-based projectors, interesting input devices), but what would you like to see up-close from this year's crop of exhibitors (sorry, it's a long list), and why?

Let's say you are an IT stud named Yoed Anis, you spent a year in Japan and decided you really like Saké, and you're back home in Austin, Texas. Since Texas, like Japan, grows lots of rice, you obviously need to start the Texas Saké Company to produce Rising Star and Whooping Crane Sakés, which you sell online and through a number of Texas restaurants and retailers. But whatever we can say in print pales beside a two-part brewery tour conducted by Toji Yoed himself, accompanied by Timothy Lord and his trusty camcorder. Yes, there's a transcription. But the video tour itself is better, even though it regretfully does not include the delightful aroma of Saké being made. (Someday, perhaps, Slashdot Studios will be equipped for Smell-O-Vision, but that's at least a few years off.)

Let's say you are an IT stud named Yoed Anis, you spent a year in Japan and decided you really like Saké, and you're back home in Austin, Texas. Since Texas, like Japan, grows lots of rice, you obviously need to start the Texas Saké Company to produce Rising Star and Whooping Crane Sakés, which you sell online and through a number of Texas restaurants and retailers. But whatever we can say in print pales beside a two-part brewery tour conducted by Toji Yoed himself, accompanied by Timothy Lord and his trusty camcorder. Yes, there's a transcription. But the video tour itself is better, even though it regretfully does not include the delightful aroma of Saké being made. (Someday, perhaps, Slashdot Studios will be equipped for Smell-O-Vision, but that's at least a few years off.)

An anonymous reader writes "Niels Provos, an engineer at Google working on malware and phishing protection, is showing on YouTube how to forge knives and Viking swords. The process is absolutely fascinating and follows the steps of Viking blacksmiths from a thousand years ago. It starts by taking small bars of metal that get heated and hammered together until they become a solid piece. He then shows how to form it with the hammer, heat treat and polish it. All the videos are narrated explaining the purpose of each step. Sure beats sitting in front of the computer."

bill_mcgonigle writes "Updating the previous story, Forbes and Gigaom are now reporting that Intel is running an internal startup aimed at offering an internet-connected set top box with a-la-carte 'cable' channel subscriptions. They also apparently plan to record everything and offer all content on-demand. While some are skeptical that content providers will give up their cable cash cow and they've run into licensing problems already, perhaps the economic effects of cord-cutters will finally make this business model viable."

hazeii writes "Einstein@home, the distributed computing project searching for the gravitational waves predicted to exist by Albert Einstein, looks set to breach the 1 Petaflops barrier around midnight UTC tonight. Put into context, if it was in the Top500 Supercomputers list, it would be in at number 24. I'm sure there are plenty of Slashdot readers who can contribute enough CPU and GPU cycles to push them well over 1,000 teraflops — and maybe even discover a pulsar in the process." From their forums: "At 14:45 we had 989.2 TFLOPS with an increase of 1.3 TFLOPS/h. In principle that's enough to reach 1001.1 TFLOPS at midnight (UTC) but very often, like yesterday, between 22:45 and 22:50 there occurs a drop of about 5 TFLOPS. So we will have very likely hit 1 PFLOPS in the early morning tomorrow. "

An anonymous reader writes with reports that TSMC is preparing to do a first test run of Apple's A6X chipset currently manufactured by Samsung. The TSMC manufactured chips will feature a process shrink from 32nm to 28nm, and there's a good chance Apple will grant them the contract for the next generation A7 chip. From SlashGear: "The test will kick off in Q1 2013, The China Times reports, with TSMC producing a new, 28nm version of the existing 32nm A6X that Samsung has been producing for the full-sized iPad 4th-gen; the smaller chip, which will likely be more power efficient as well, will debut in a new iPad 5th-gen and iPad mini 2."

rtfa-troll writes "Amazon's latest table of the top selling laptops will be a surprise for many on Slashdot whose first reaction when we discussed this before was 'so what,' with pundits describing it as 'an enterprise contender.' Given the recent launch and huge advertising campaign, you might expect that the top selling consumer laptop would be based on Win8. If you read recent discussions about Microsoft's troubled new system you might expect a Mac to be leading, but Google's Chromebook topping the sales chart on a consumer site without any major advertising campaign is a major surprise. We've discussed before that apart from its web based ChromeOS, Chromebooks are also very fast running Ubuntu Linux and have several other distributions already ported."

An article at Space.com forecasts an important year for private space companies in 2013. SpaceX is working on a new version of its Dragon capsule that is quite different from the current model. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that the first iteration looked similar to other space capsules because the SpaceX team was learning as they went. Now, they're drawing on the expertise they've gained to tailor the new capsule to their needs. "Musk described Dragon version 2 as having 'legs that pop out' and added that it uses parachutes and its eight SuperDraco thrusters for a 'propulsive landing.'" The capsule will hold up to seven people, and they hope to win a crew transportation contract for getting NASA astronauts up to the ISS. The bidding for that contract starts in the second half of 2013. Commercial space planes are also set to reach new heights in 2013. XCOR Aerospace will be building its Lynx I rocket plane, and a spokesman said, "we’ll be doing test fights throughout the year from early 2013 and then go into commercial flights." Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo will also undergo its first rocket-powered flight this year.

jrepin writes "While the UK has seen the light, the EU has actually gone backwards on open standards in recent times. The original European Interoperability Framework required royalty-free licensing, but what was doubtless a pretty intense wave of lobbying in Brussels overturned that, and EIF v2 ended up pushing FRAND, which effectively locks out open source — the whole point of the exercise. Shamefully, some parts of the European Commission are still attacking open source."

An anonymous reader writes with an article from Duke Law on what would have entered the public domain today were it not for the copyright extensions enacted in 1978. From the article: "What could have been entering the public domain in the U.S. on January 1, 2013? Under the law that existed until 1978, works from 1956. The films Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, The Best Things in Life Are Free, Forbidden Planet, The Ten Commandments, and Around the World in 80 Days; the stories 101 Dalmations and Phillip K. Dick's The Minority Report; the songs 'Que Sera, Sera' and 'Heartbreak Hotel', and more. What is entering the public domain this year? Nothing." And Rick Falkvinge shares his predictions for what the copyright monopoly will try this year. As a bit of a music fan, excessive copyright hits home often: the entire discographies of many artists I like have been out of print for at least a decade. Should copyright even be as long as in the pre-1978 law? Is the Berne Convention obsolete and in need of breaking to actually preserve cultural history?

An anonymous reader writes with an article from Duke Law on what would have entered the public domain today were it not for the copyright extensions enacted in 1978. From the article: "What could have been entering the public domain in the U.S. on January 1, 2013? Under the law that existed until 1978, works from 1956. The films Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, The Best Things in Life Are Free, Forbidden Planet, The Ten Commandments, and Around the World in 80 Days; the stories 101 Dalmations and Phillip K. Dick's The Minority Report; the songs 'Que Sera, Sera' and 'Heartbreak Hotel', and more. What is entering the public domain this year? Nothing." And Rick Falkvinge shares his predictions for what the copyright monopoly will try this year. As a bit of a music fan, excessive copyright hits home often: the entire discographies of many artists I like have been out of print for at least a decade. Should copyright even be as long as in the pre-1978 law? Is the Berne Convention obsolete and in need of breaking to actually preserve cultural history?

theodp writes "Rudy Giuliani had John Gotti to worry about; Mike Bloomberg has Steve Jobs. Despite all-time lows for the city in homicides and shootings, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said overall crime in New York City was up 3.3% in 2012 due to iPhone, iPad and other Apple device thefts, which have increased by 3,890 this year. 'If you just took away the jump in Apple, we'd be down for the year,' explained Marc La Vorgna, the mayor's press secretary. 'The proliferation of people carrying expensive devices around is so great,' La Vorgna added. 'It's something that's never had to be dealt with before.' Bloomberg also took to the radio, urging New Yorkers who didn't want to become a crime statistic to keep their iDevices in an interior, hard-to-reach pocket: 'Put it in a pocket in sort of a more body-fitting, tighter clothes, that you can feel if it was — if somebody put their hand in your pocket, not just an outside coat pocket.' But it seems the best way to fight the iCrime Wave might be to slash the $699 price of an iPhone (unactivated), which costs an estimated $207 to make. The U.S. phone subsidy model reportedly adds $400+ to the price of an iPhone. So, is offering unlocked alternatives at much more reasonable prices than an iPhone — like the $299 Nexus 4, for starters — the real key to taking a bite out of cellphone crime? After all, didn't dramatic price cuts pretty much kill car stereo theft?"

Rambo Tribble writes "England has awarded Raymond Roberts, one of the nine cryptanalysts responsible for breaking the Nazi Tunny code machine, (also known by the German designation Lorenz cipher machine) the MBE. Roberts is the last surviving member of the team which cracked the German army's cipher machine functionality, much like others at Bletchley broke the better-known Enigma machine."

Mark Westlake is the Chief Revenue Office for TechMediaNetwork. Slashdot has often taken a mediawatch role, especially when it comes to technology coverage -- which is what TechMediaNetork does for a living. As Chief Revenue Office, Mark is in charge of making sure enough money comes in to pay writers and editors, pay for bandwidth and servers, and hopefully have enough revenue over and above expenses to show a profit. We've interviewed editors and writers, and plenty of writers' work gets linked from Slashdot, but we pay little or no (mostly no) attention to the business side of the publishing business. Like it or not, if we are going to have online news someone has to sell the ads and make decisions about whether to set up a paywall or not. That's Mark's job. Like him or not, he does a job somebody has to do, and has been doing it for 30 years. He knows he's talking to a potentially hostile audience here, but he accepts that. As he says, near the end of the video, "...you can't please everybody, right?"

i_want_you_to_throw_ writes "Details of Jaron Lanier's crusade against Web 2.0 continue in an article at Smithsonian Magazine. The article expands upon Lanier's criticism of Web 2.0. It's an interesting read, with Lanier suggesting we are outsourcing ourselves into insignificant advertising-fodder and making an audacious connection between techno-utopianism, the rise of the machines and the Great Recession. From the article: 'As far back as the turn of the century, he singled out one standout aspect of the new web culture—the acceptance, the welcoming of anonymous commenters on websites—as a danger to political discourse and the polity itself. At the time, this objection seemed a bit extreme. But he saw anonymity as a poison seed. The way it didn’t hide, but, in fact, brandished the ugliness of human nature beneath the anonymous screen-name masks. An enabling and foreshadowing of mob rule, not a growth of democracy, but an accretion of tribalism. ... 'This is the thing that continues to scare me. You see in history the capacity of people to congeal—like social lasers of cruelty. That capacity is constant. ... We have economic fear combined with everybody joined together on these instant twitchy social networks which are designed to create mass action. What does it sound like to you? It sounds to me like the prequel to potential social catastrophe. I’d rather take the risk of being wrong than not be talking about that.'"

i_want_you_to_throw_ writes "Details of Jaron Lanier's crusade against Web 2.0 continue in an article at Smithsonian Magazine. The article expands upon Lanier's criticism of Web 2.0. It's an interesting read, with Lanier suggesting we are outsourcing ourselves into insignificant advertising-fodder and making an audacious connection between techno-utopianism, the rise of the machines and the Great Recession. From the article: 'As far back as the turn of the century, he singled out one standout aspect of the new web culture—the acceptance, the welcoming of anonymous commenters on websites—as a danger to political discourse and the polity itself. At the time, this objection seemed a bit extreme. But he saw anonymity as a poison seed. The way it didn’t hide, but, in fact, brandished the ugliness of human nature beneath the anonymous screen-name masks. An enabling and foreshadowing of mob rule, not a growth of democracy, but an accretion of tribalism. ... 'This is the thing that continues to scare me. You see in history the capacity of people to congeal—like social lasers of cruelty. That capacity is constant. ... We have economic fear combined with everybody joined together on these instant twitchy social networks which are designed to create mass action. What does it sound like to you? It sounds to me like the prequel to potential social catastrophe. I’d rather take the risk of being wrong than not be talking about that.'"

dotancohen writes "I am tasked with building a few Linux machines for a small office. However, many the currently available motherboards seem to be Linux-hostile. For instance, in addition to the whole UEFI issue, my last install was a three-day affair due to the motherboard reporting a Linux-supported ethernet device (the common RTL8168) while it was actually using a GbE Ethernet device that does not work with the legacy drivers and didn't even work with a test Windows 7 install until the driver disk was installed. There are no current hardware compatibility lists for Debian or Ubuntu and I've received from Asus and Gigabyte the expected reply: No official Linux support, install Windows for best experience. I even turned to the two large local computer vendors, asking if they could provide Linux-compatible machines ready to go, but neither of them would be of any help. What globally-available motherboards or motherboard manufacturers can you recommend today?"

antdude writes "The National Purchase Diary (NPD) Group Blog reports that 'Internet Connected TVs Are Used To Watch TV, And That's About All — The Internet connected high definition television (HDTV) screen has so far failed to break beyond the bounds of its TV-centric heritage, with little use for the big screen beyond the obligatory video services. But the connection is being used to provide access to a far wider variety of alternative sources for video content. The latest NPD Connected Intelligence Application & Convergence report highlights that nearly six out of ten consumers who own a connected HDTV are accessing Over-the-Top video services through the device.' (Seen on DSL reports.)" Wired's headline on a story based on the same information puts things more bluntly: "No One Uses Smart TV Internet Because It Sucks."

cstacy writes "Tatu Yionen, inventor of SSH, says he feels 'a moral responsibility' to come out of retirement and warn that a 'little-noticed problem' could jeopardize the security of much of the world's confidential data. He is referring to the management (or lack thereof) of SSH keys (i.e. 'authorized_keys') files. He suggests that most organizations simply allow the SSH key files to be created, copied, accumulated, and abandoned, all over their network, making easy pickings for intruders to gain access. Do you think this is a widespread problem? How does your company manage SSH keys?" cstacy's summary here is accurate, but as charlesTheLurker notes, the article is a bit over the top: "The Washington Times claims that there's a huge vulnerability in ssh. It turns out that some reporter there has discovered that you can do passwordless login with the software, and has spun this into a story of a dangerous vulnerability. Sigh."

theodp writes "'It can be tough to stay connected over long distances,' writes GeekWire's Todd Bishop. 'Yes, there's phone calls, texting, Facebook, Twitter, IM, video chatting and everything else. But what if you could give virtual hugs to each other using battery-powered, Internet-enabled pillows?' That — and more — is covered by Microsoft's newly-awarded patent on Force-Feedback Within Telepresence, the idea of using interactive, connected devices to bring physical interactions to long-distance communications. Readers of Ted Nelson's 1975 Computer Lib/Dream Machines can only imagine the interesting possibilities for Skype!"

theodp writes "Silly rabbit, parallel processing is not just for Big Data! Building on techniques outlined by Andy Baio back in 2008, Wired writer and 20% Doctrine evangelist Ryan Tate has released Ruby-based software called Typingpool to make audio transcriptions easier and cheaper. 'Typingpool chops your audio into small bits and routes them to the labor marketplace Mechanical Turk,' Tate explains to his reporter pals, 'where workers transcribe the bits in parallel. This produces transcripts much faster than any lone transcriber for as little one-eighth what you pay a transcription service. Better still, workers keep 91 percent of the money you spend.' Remember to Use the Force for Good, Tate adds."

dryriver writes with a report from CNN that the asteroid known as 2011 AG5 will not hit Earth in 2040 as early calculations had led some to fear when it was first spotted last year. "To narrow down the asteroid's future course, NASA put out a call for more observation. Astronomers from the University of Hawaii at Manoa took up the task and managed to observe the asteroid over several days in October. 'An analysis of the new data conducted by NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shows that the risk of collision in 2040 has been eliminated,' NASA declared Friday."

resistant writes "A limited study from China offers the tantalizing possibility that targeting specific gut bacteria in humans could significantly reduce the scope of an epidemic of obesity in Western countries: 'The endotoxin-producing Enterobacter decreased in relative abundance from 35% of the volunteer's gut bacteria to non-detectable, during which time the volunteer lost 51.4kg of 174.8kg initial weight and recovered from hyperglycemia and hypertension after 23 weeks on a diet of whole grains, traditional Chinese medicinal foods and prebiotics.' As usual, sensationalist reports have been exaggerating the import of this very early investigation, and one wonders about that 'diet of whole grains.' Still, there could be meat in the idea of addressing pathogenic bacteria for the control of excessive weight gain. After all, it wasn't too long ago that a brave scientist insisted in the face of widespread ridicule that peptic ulcers in humans usually are caused by bacterial infections, not by acidic foods."

theodp writes "The BBC News' Laura Gray reports on a juggling notation system developed in the 80's called Siteswap (aka Quantum Juggling and Cambridge Notation) and how it has helped jugglers discover and share thousands of new tricks. Frustrated that there was no way to write down juggling moves, mathematician Colin Wright and others helped devised Siteswap, which uses sequences of numbers to encode the number of beats of each throw, which is related to their height and the hand to which the throw is made. 'Siteswap has allowed jugglers to share tricks with each other without having to meet in person or film themselves,' says James Grime, juggling enthusiast and math instructor for Cambridge University. Still unclear on the concept? Spend some time playing around with Paul Klimek's most-excellent Quantum Juggling simulator, and you too can be a Flying Karamazov Brother!"

The Enlightenment front page bears this small announcement: "E17 release HAS HAPPENED!" The release announcement is remarkably spartan — it's mostly a tribute to the dozens of contributors who have worked on the software itself and on translating it into many languages besides system-default English. On the other hand, if you've been waiting since December 2000 for E17 (also known as Enlightenment 0.17), you probably have some idea that Enlightenment is a window manager (or possibly a desktop environment: the developers try to defuse any dispute on that front, but suffice it to say that you can think of it either way), and that the coders are more interested in putting out the software that they consider sufficiently done than in incrementing release numbers. That means they've made some side trips along the way, Knuth-like, to do things like create an entire set of underlying portable libraries. The release candidate changelog of a few days ago gives an idea of the very latest changes, but this overview shows and tells what to expect in E17. If you're among those disappointed in the way some desktop environments have tended toward simplicity at the expense of flexibility, you can be sure that Enlightenment runs the other way: "We don't go quietly into the night and remove options when no one is looking. None of those new big version releases with fanfare and "Hey look! Now with half the options you used to have!". We sneak in when you least expect it and plant a whole forest of new option seeds, watching them spring to life. We nail new options to walls on a regular basis. We bake options-cakes and hand them out at parties. Options are good. Options are awesome. We have lots of them. Spend some quality time getting to know your new garden of options in E17. It may just finally give you the control you have been pining for."

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

tgeller writes "It's hard to believe that today's nerdier children will one day bore their grandkids with stories of primitive mobile access, household robotics, and 3-D printers. Some will become rich and famous by latching onto tomorrow's winners; others will find themselves irrelevant as the objects of their obsessions fail in the marketplace. But all with the energy to remember will come away with stories from the dawn of creation. One such witness is Kevin Savetz, a 41-year-old technology journalist and entrepreneur whose new book Terrible Nerd recounts 'true tales of growing up geek' during the '80s computer revolution. It's a rich chronicle that deftly mixes details of his beloved technologies with the zeitgeist a particular time and space. As such, it's an entertaining read for technologists and non-techies alike." Keep reading for the rest of tgeller's review. Terrible Nerd author Kevin Savetz pages 256 pages publisher Savetz Publishing rating 7/10 reviewer Tom Geller ISBN 978-1939169006 summary Kevin Savetz' biography of personal computing, gaming, and online adventures as a child in the '80s Savetz' background was a perfect storm of nerd-incubation factors. Suburban, Californian, white, middle class, and with a statistically improbable number of engineers in the family, he suffered through "special" gym classes and illnesses that drove him further into indoor pursuits. The family's first "computer" appeared around late 1976 in the form of a Fairchild Channel F video game — the first to use ROM cartridges. It was followed by an Intellivision in 1981 before Savetz gained access to his first "real" computer a few months later: an Atari 800 at his father's house, available to him only on bi-weekly visits.

As the Atari opens Savetz' world, Terrible Nerd traces his progress into a computer-geek community that existed even then. Between epic sessions playing text adventures (like Zork) and 8-bit classics (like M.U.L.E.), he discovered programming, software trading and, ultimately, modem-connected bulletin-board systems (BBSes). This, I think, is where the book is at its most interesting: it charts not only the nascent technology, but also a young man's blossoming into an engaged, social animal.

Not that the book is short on personal insights elsewhere. Overall, Savetz does a good job interweaving technology, personal development, and his feelings at the time. It's certainly a personal book, and the author isn't afraid to come off as the bad guy once in a while. He admits to sundry misdeeds, including piracy (ubiquitous then), hacking, forgery, and even rigging a church raffle. But he also shines light on the turbulence of adolescence, from a rocky relationship with his stepfather, to a deceitful boss, to an attempted molestation by a family friend who'd given him a valuable package of software.

In this way, it's far more readable than purely technical histories, such as Peter Salus' otherwise fascinating Casting the Net: From ARPANET to INTERNET and beyond . I would have liked greater cohesion among the stories, though — a story arc, a sense that they were all driving toward something bigger. Without a crystal ball, one doesn't have that sense of purpose at the time; but as this was written in retrospect, he could have done more to tie it all together.

On the other hand, one can't fault the author's dedication to recording details of this time — a venture he nobly continues through sites such as atariarchives.org and Classic Computer Magazine Archives. Given his archivist's heart, it's surprising that the book didn't include a much-needed index.

For me, Terrible Nerd started to slow a bit when Savetz related his college experience in the late '80s. Admittedly, this sense of detachment is partly for personal reasons: my own involvement in computers died down for a few years then, so tales of the IBM PC XT and such awoke no memories. Perhaps those years were just not as technologically interesting, as "hobbyist" computers disappeared, and the focus moved from the family den to the office. Or perhaps adulthood is intrinsically less dramatic than adolescence. In any case, this period of the book is not without its great stories, such as the author's accidental denial-of-service flood that shut down Europe's internet connection, or his involvement with the famous multi-user LambdaMOO. (I regretted that he didn't comment on the attention that that MOO got, first from a notable 1994 Wired article, then from the 1999 book My Tiny Life.)

Around then, his longstanding interest in writing and journalism started to pay off. Advice from established computer journalist John C. Dvorak and a lead from war reporter (and fellow MOO-er) Jacques Leslie led him to his first gig with MicroTimes. That led to many other jobs, including a lucrative position as America Online's "AnswerMan" (for a cut of the service's substantial hourly fees). Writing a FAQ on internet faxing got him into entrepreneurship with FaxZero.com and several other endeavors, and he took part in founding an early community internet service provider (ISP). He continues to write, and to oversee several online businesses, to this day.

Like most personal narratives, Terrible Nerd has its slow moments — some phases of one's life just aren't as interesting as others. And unlike the best of them, it lacks an overriding theme beyond "It was cool to be a computer kid in the '80s!". But that was enough to keep me hooked. For those of us who shared that time and space, it's well-presented nostalgia; for those coming up now, it's a roadmap for enjoying emerging technologies in today's time and space.

You can purchase Terrible Nerd from amazon.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 "The internet control in China seems to have been tightened recently, according to the Guardian. Several VPN providers claimed that the censorship system can 'learn, discover and block' encrypted VPN protocols. Using machine learning algorithms in protocol classification is not exactly a new topic in the field. And given the fact that even the founding father of the 'Great Firewall,' Fan Bingxing himself, has also written a paper about utilizing machine learning algorithm in encrypted traffic analysis, it would be not surprising at all if they are now starting to identify suspicious encrypted traffic using numerically efficient classifiers. So the arm race between anti-censorship and surveillance technology goes on."

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Farhad Manjoo writes that there are a number of technologies that gunmakers could add to their products that might prevent hundreds or thousands of deaths per year. One area of active research is known as the 'smart gun' — a trigger-identification system that prevents a gun from being fired by anyone other than its authorized user. Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology created a working prototype of a gun that determines whether or not to fire based on a user's 'grip pattern.' Gunmakers have been slow to add other safety technologies as well, including indicators that show whether a gun is loaded, and 'magazine safeties' that prevent weapons from being fired when their ammunition magazine is removed (PDF). That could save 400 lives a year. So why aren't gunmakers making safer guns? Because guns are exempt from most of the consumer safety laws that have improved the rest of American life. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, charged with looking over thousands of different kinds of products, is explicitly prohibited from regulating firearms. In 2005, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which immunizes gun makers against lawsuits resulting from 'misuse' of the products. If they can't be sued and can't be regulated, gunmakers have no incentive to make smarter guns." Note that gun safety features (not universally loved) like loaded-chamber indicators, grip safeties, and magazine disconnects are constantly evolving and have been available in some form and in various combinations for many decades, so gun makers seem to have some incentive to produce and improve them, and that the PLCAA does not prevent consumer safety lawsuits, but does shield gun makers from suits based on criminal conduct by gun buyers (though imperfectly).

Dishwasha writes "A fellow co-worker of mine turned me on to CubeSat; apparently there are commercial space companies that will launch CubeSat systems from their payload for a modest fee. Is anybody in the /. community involved in amateur microsatellite systems? How would I go about getting involved at an amateur level? Are there any amateur user groups and meetups I can join? I have limited background in all the prerequisites but am eager to learn even if it takes a lifetime. Any links to design and engineering of satellites would be appreciated."

l2718 writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation announced today a large donation by Mark Cuban and Markus 'Notch' Persson to the EFF Patent Project. Notably, part of Cuban's donation is for the creation of the 'Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents' (the first holder is current staff attorney Julie Samuels). Time will tell if the new title will help her advocacy work. Cuban said, 'The current state of patents and patent litigation in this country is shameful," said Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. "Silly patent lawsuits force prices to go up while competition and innovation suffer. That's bad for consumers and bad for business. It's time to fix our broken system, and EFF can help.' Notch added, 'New games and other technological tools come from improving on old things and making them better – an iterative process that the current patent environment could shut down entirely. '"

l2718 writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation announced today a large donation by Mark Cuban and Markus 'Notch' Persson to the EFF Patent Project. Notably, part of Cuban's donation is for the creation of the 'Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents' (the first holder is current staff attorney Julie Samuels). Time will tell if the new title will help her advocacy work. Cuban said, 'The current state of patents and patent litigation in this country is shameful," said Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. "Silly patent lawsuits force prices to go up while competition and innovation suffer. That's bad for consumers and bad for business. It's time to fix our broken system, and EFF can help.' Notch added, 'New games and other technological tools come from improving on old things and making them better – an iterative process that the current patent environment could shut down entirely. '"

SchrodingerZ writes "After their yearlong mission to map the Moon's gravitational field, twin probes Ebb and Flow crashed into the lunar surface, ending the GRAIL mission. The crashes were controlled events, each impacting 30 seconds apart from each other. The twin spacecraft were running low on maneuvering fuel and NASA, not wanting the craft to fall on historical sites such as the Apollo landing sites, redirected their flight patterns to impart the far (dark) side of the moon. Their impact sites were named after Sally Ride, the first American woman in space. 'During the news conference last week, Maria T. Zuber, the principal investigator, said the probes would be crashing into a "non-sunlit" part of the surface.' When the site becomes sunlit again in several weeks, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will attempt to take pictures of the craters the probes undoubtedly made in the lunar soil."

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from Medical Daily about a new theory for what triggered the "Great Dying: " "Researchers believe that they may finally know why the event occurred, but the theory is not without controversy. There are several theories, including the possibility of a meteorite hitting the planet. Previously, most researchers believed that the Permian mass extinction was a result of a series of volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia. ... However, Daniel Rothman from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is floating around a different theory. As he presented in a meeting for the American Geophysical Union, he believes that the mass extinction could have been caused by something much smaller. His theory is that the extinction was caused by a single strain of bacteria."