Slashdot Mirror

Tim writes "Apparently the guys who make South Park just got a ton of money to continue making the show through 2000, and to make a South Park Movie. Read about it at wired " I know a lot of you hate SP, but most readers seem to dig it, so I figured I'd mention the Y2k thing. That, and I'm sick of studying.

Bjørn Karger wrote in to give us this Wired article about a wierd science convention in Phoenix. It's a pretty interesting read. Especially for someone procrastinating on doing anything related to school.

Matthew Booth writes " this wired link has a story about proposals for new top level domains. It seems the US yet again forgot that planet earth doesn't stop at its borders."

Farrell McGovern writes " Here is a followup on the previous article. It brings up some interesting questions...does Digital/Alta Vista remove references to other search engines? And if the tech doesn't take much to modify to be used on other search engines, has Digital/Alta Vista shot themselves in the foot? Another thing it points out is the conflict between the spirit of the Net, and those who would make money from it without keeping that spirit. "

Maciej Stachowiak writes " This article at wired explains how Microsoft might leave Java out of it's base browser download for IE 5.0, forcing users to load a separate plugin when they want to view java content. This is an attempt to push java down to the same status as activeX and browser plugins, i.e. most users will ignore it because they have no desire to download additional software. " On the flip side, this means that alternate Java environments (Kaffee? the Sun JVM?) could be coded up as plug-ins to offer a true standard Java implementation that would allow IE users to use a standard Java VM instead of MS's less-than-pure implementation.

Thom Phillabaum wrote in with this article where you can read about Ted Nelson's latest thing. Since inventing hypertext, he's moved on to even more interesting ways of connecting information. I'm interested in seeing the product myself, if it works, it will be wonderful.

Ted Stein writes "The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Diego has unanimously ruled against a "cyber-pirate" who registered domain names containing company names and trademarks, i.e. Panavision and Panaflex (tm). His asking prices were often above $10,000. Although the prices are ridiculous, this raises an important question: do trademark laws apply in cyberspace? Check it out" This stuff has been a debate ever since the mainstream latched on to the internet. I don't have a lot of goodwill towards the gold diggers that snagged the good names early on, but I'm afraid that stuff like this is going to make things like the recent pokey.org mess all the more important.

Some interesting reports from the 7th WWW confrence show some interesting promises. Berners-Lee expounded that the Web will continue to improve, although he holds some concerns about privacy, an issue he has talked about for quite some time. Additionally, he believes that the future of the Web lies within the realm of XML.

louie wrote in with This Link where you can read that Mozilla now has XML capability, courtesy of James Clark, technical guru of the XML group at W3. Can't wait to see that integrated into the main source tree.

The purchase of Firefly by Microsoft may cause some major problems for Netscape. Firefly was in midst of developing a privacy component for Netscape's eCommerce server, something on which Netscape was wagering a large portion of their future revenue on.

Stanford Wallace, aka "Spam King" has officially announced an end to spamming on his part. Instead, he will try a new scheme in which ISP will actually be paid to receive the mail, in some ways an attempt to legitimize the practice. Additionally, he will try and help the Netizens Protection Act. Sounds good-if all of this is true. A "peace treaty" of sorts has been signed, but it is hard to believe that spam can be stopped by one guy quitting, or a law being passed.

David Eisner writes " The W3 Consortium has issued MathML as a recommendation for presenting mathematical content on the web." This seems to be the first notable XML application to be standardized. Hopefully many more will follow.

Justin Cave wrote in to send us a link to a wired article where you can read about a (windows only) encryption proggie called SynCrypt. The article is hard on PGP for being difficult to use (probably true for the pc novice), but the best part is the way you can get your password back if you forget it. Read the article and get a nice laugh.

There may be a new charge against Microsoft by the US Department of Justice. This latest action, still rumored, maybe an action directly against Windows 98. The Wall Street Journal reported the main article, stating that the case "would allege 'illegal maintenance and extension' of Microsoft's control of personal-computer operating software, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act." Whew--that's enough maybes for me today.

The National Science Foundation, one of the gargantuan funding agencies of the US government is coming under increasing pressure to find out where its money is going to come from. Clinton is attempting to raise the amount of money going in to the Foundation's budget, but the monies to pay for that may not be forthcoming. Oddly enough, much of the money is tied to the tobacco settlement, and despite the budget surplus no one is quite sure how to get it the money that it needs.

Indiana University will be now using exclusively Microsoft products, in accordance with a contract signed with the software behemoth. This deal is being compared to the deal MS tried to make with the California Schools Group a little way back, a deal that was reworked because of a huge amount of protest. Microsoft has also said that they will be pursuing more deals like this, further indication that they mean to assimilate this bastion of anti-MS feelings. If you are an IU student, employee, or alum, I urge you to write the university in hopes of at least keeping the campuses at least nominally multi-standard.

Apple has publicly stated that there is no deadline on Steve Jobs' position within the company. The Board has made it clear that they hope that Jobs will stay at Apple for "a long time", a clear statement of support.

Ted Stein writes "Although GIMP advocates will likely attach the freeware image manipulation program to it, Adobe has not disclosed what it believes to be the cause of its first quarter losses (other than weak demand). Their revenues dropped from $226.5 million to $197.8 million." Read more at this wired article. Update:Relax People. The gimp thing was meant to be funny. And watch the language.

Sun will be bringing to market yet another OS for box-top consumer items, called (surprise surprise) JavaOS. The system is supposed to compete at the same level that WindowsCE is presently at. The question of fallout is interesting: What do you guys think that for all of these os? Which is going to win?

Jason Springer writes " I saw this article on USA Today . I suggest you read it to get the drift. I also suggest mentioning this story which I read on Wired which has to deal with Geffen's fight to destroy MP3s (the articles are quite related). I'm not sure if you have posted this before or not, but since I haven't seen it posted myself... well, anyway. Later. "

Wired always manages to find those little bits of news, that while not entirely useful, are at least semi-interesting. Today, one of their stories is about the results of the latest net poll. The funny part about these polls is that they seem so....well...obvious. Apparently, older users are more utilitarian about their net usage, whilst younger users are more holistic in their approach,

Wired always manages to find those little bits of news, that while not entirely useful, are at least semi-interesting. Today, one of their stories is about the results of the latest net poll. The funny part about these polls is that they seem so....well...obvious. Apparently, older users are more utilitarian about their net usage, whilst younger users are more holistic in their approach,

John Nguyen sent in this link and writes " Well, here is an article that states that Quantum computers are only a few years away now. For those who dont know, a quantum "is a device that replaces the zeros and ones of PC binary data with photons or ions trapped by electromagnetic fields.""

Well, it was inevitable but someone has done it: a headband that converts your "brain waves" to music. The head band actually senses somewhere in the range of twenty biological "waves", although the article does not seem to say specifically what it is sensing--probably electrochemical reactions would be my guess. This is pretty cool stuff and is an interesting step in making technology work for art.

David Navarro wrote in with this wired story where you can read that Larry Wall has personally agreed to work on making Perl and XML work together in the best of ways. Now if only the perl compiler was up in running, I could start forgetting all that extra C I have floating around (joke).

delaney wrote in to tell us about this wired article about The Gimp. With the countdown on, it's nice to see that PR before one point oh. If there are any adobe employees reading, I'm curious what their take is.

Nate Oostendorp (One of my room mates) pointed me to this wired article about a program that searches your hard drive for .wav files, and mixes them together to create ambiant music. It's called Sound Raider, it's only for windows, but it looks very cool for those of us who are into generative music.

The US Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has pledged that he won't let the moratorium on internet taxes pass by without input from the nation's governors and mayors. These two parties are especially interested in the ability to tax the internet, being able to pull in income from transacations in other areas, much like the sales tax arguement.

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

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

Allright allright, I wasn't going to post this since I don't really care, but after ~20 of you submitted it, I figured it was worth mentioning. Microsoft has released another Internet Explorer 4 for Solaris. Other Unices will follow, but my guess is Linux won't be one of them any time soon. The last version caused the UltraSparcs at school to feel like a Sparc1- hope that this version is a bit smoother at least, never heard that machine swap like that before.

Christopher Blizzard sent us This link to wired where you can read about the PalmPilot and why it has developed such a huge geek following. Things like using it as an instrument tuner, a web graphical web browser and a thousand other apps. Also mentions the Linux Port. Very interesting reading about a very interesting piece of hardware. Note to self:Pilot doesn't help you if you leave it at home.

The software magazine titan, Ziff-Davis will become listed on the NYSE. The Japanese parent company plans to merge Ziff-Davis, and two other Softbank companies. The merger will make Ziff-Davis, Inc, with an IPO of 460$US million dollars. Phew-sure wish that Slashdot could get a cut of that.

Brent Fulgham sent us this link to a wired article where you can read about a disgruntled programmer who's sabotage apparently did 10 million dollars worth of damage to the company that fired him. People talk about "Going Postal" but they never worry programmers in the same light. Apparently that's going to change. Of course now nobody will ever trust us again.

Redherring has a historical review of the markets that Microsoft tried to dominate... but failed. Unix and NetWare outnumber NT by 5 to 1, MSN did not become the dominant Internet provider, WebTV is somewhat of a flop, and Java (the other technology NASA actually uses) is extremely popular despite Microsoft's disparaging it. Meanwhile Alex St John proud architect of that abomination DirectX, explains why Microsoft chose it as API... The article in the print edition says: "What happens when folks such as ATI and nVidia, who never manage to make a working driver -- even when they are supplied with a DDK, sample code, and a testing procedure -- take it upon themselves to make up their own OGL drivers? BOOM! That's what." Perhaps it's got something to do with the whole driver running at ring 0? I wonder why those clever folks at the GGI-project decided to put the least stuff possible in kernel mode... perhaps security? Ah, yes, I forgot, they did not implement the first idea that gelled in their station-wagons. The article goes on to state that "The day Microsoft encounters a major competitor whose strength arises from the community of game developers is the day game developers will get Microsoft's full, undivided attention.": divide and conquer!

Finally, when confronted with a new threat, the best strategy to keep your sheep^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers is to frighten them. Somehow I'm not losing any sleep about security issues that others might add...

Redherring has a historical review of the markets that Microsoft tried to dominate... but failed. Unix and NetWare outnumber NT by 5 to 1, MSN did not become the dominant Internet provider, WebTV is somewhat of a flop, and Java (the other technology NASA actually uses) is extremely popular despite Microsoft's disparaging it. Meanwhile Alex St John proud architect of that abomination DirectX, explains why Microsoft chose it as API... The article in the print edition says: "What happens when folks such as ATI and nVidia, who never manage to make a working driver -- even when they are supplied with a DDK, sample code, and a testing procedure -- take it upon themselves to make up their own OGL drivers? BOOM! That's what." Perhaps it's got something to do with the whole driver running at ring 0? I wonder why those clever folks at the GGI-project decided to put the least stuff possible in kernel mode... perhaps security? Ah, yes, I forgot, they did not implement the first idea that gelled in their station-wagons. The article goes on to state that "The day Microsoft encounters a major competitor whose strength arises from the community of game developers is the day game developers will get Microsoft's full, undivided attention.": divide and conquer!

Finally, when confronted with a new threat, the best strategy to keep your sheep^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers is to frighten them. Somehow I'm not losing any sleep about security issues that others might add...

Redherring has a historical review of the markets that Microsoft tried to dominate... but failed. Unix and NetWare outnumber NT by 5 to 1, MSN did not become the dominant Internet provider, WebTV is somewhat of a flop, and Java (the other technology NASA actually uses) is extremely popular despite Microsoft's disparaging it. Meanwhile Alex St John proud architect of that abomination DirectX, explains why Microsoft chose it as API... The article in the print edition says: "What happens when folks such as ATI and nVidia, who never manage to make a working driver -- even when they are supplied with a DDK, sample code, and a testing procedure -- take it upon themselves to make up their own OGL drivers? BOOM! That's what." Perhaps it's got something to do with the whole driver running at ring 0? I wonder why those clever folks at the GGI-project decided to put the least stuff possible in kernel mode... perhaps security? Ah, yes, I forgot, they did not implement the first idea that gelled in their station-wagons. The article goes on to state that "The day Microsoft encounters a major competitor whose strength arises from the community of game developers is the day game developers will get Microsoft's full, undivided attention.": divide and conquer!

Finally, when confronted with a new threat, the best strategy to keep your sheep^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers is to frighten them. Somehow I'm not losing any sleep about security issues that others might add...

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has asked Bill Gates to appear before the Senate Judicary Committee. Hatch, who has been, shall we say, not a big booster of Bill Gates and the Microsoft empire. Gates has said that he will be unable to appear. Despite that fact that it is Bill Gates, I still find it disturbing that company heads are being asked to appear, apparently to justify themselves to the US Senate for making a lot of money.

The International Standards Organization has officially choosen Apple's QuickTime format as the new standard for audio/video. More importantly for the future, developing the new MPEG-4 standard will be based on this, as a starting point. Good news for Apple, a company still underneath a dark cloud.

Dave Finton wrote in with This Wired Story where you can read about a lawsuit against MS over (get this) Multithreading. The scary thing is that MS was no where near the first OS to use Multithreading, and these days, virtually everything is threaded. He'll lose the case, but what some people won't try for a buck.

Wired News reports about a bill John McCain (Arizona-R) is trying to pass a new bill. Under the new law, libraries and schools would be forced to install filtering software in order to recieve funding that has been mandated for wiring them. I'm suprised there hasn't been a lot of hoopla about this yet...

Microsoft has announced the patch to another bug within IIS4 and NT. Apparently, the bug would allow someone to, rather then running an asp or so, actually view the source code, which in some cases would give access to the password. As expected, Microsoft has dissmissed the bug, saying that it would be very rare, and really isn't all that critical. Who knows-maybe it could be a feature instead?

The US DOJ has decided to widen its investigation into Microsoft by now looking beyond simply IE4, but the deals that MS has cut with partners involving IE4. Several parties, including Wired and AudioNet have been served subpoenas to come and speak about their partnership and dealings with Microsoft. Good thing--in many ways the problem isn't so much IE4, but the deals that MS cut with people to get it into the market.

RSA Data Security Corp. announced that they have contracted with the cable industry. Surprise, surprise, they will be helping to develop greater encryption for the cable industry. As cable moves out from simply being content providers into being an active part of the online community, they are demanding greater security. Yep, and 2+2=4.

In a victory for Microsoft, a federal court judge has ordered Lessig, the Harvard Prof formerly known as special master to the Microsoft case, to cease in his fact finding. Effectively, the judge listened to MS's complaints, and called Lessig off the case. This is the same individual who was lambasted by Microsoft for allegedly comparing installing Internet Explorer to selling his soul. Faustian bargain, indeed...

Dave Finton sent in the coolest nugget for today here Amazing as it may sound, the SPA declared that its eigth guidline for software publishers relates to Operating Systems. Prepare to smile.

wired.com reports that Rodney Matthews, my favorite fantasy artist, has been slaving away at a new game for the playstation. You can find some Rodney's pictures here

Universal Studio has announced that they will be opening a new subcompany that will be specializing in computer animated effects and films. Two moves, Frankenstein being one of them, are already underway.

Dave Finton sent this link to wired where they Cover the GNU Revolution. RedHat & Linux both get plugs.

Cesar Cardoso sent us this story over at wired where you can read about AOL and its vulnerability to cracking.