Slashdot Mirror

eldavojohn writes "What do you do when a foreign species has been introduced to your land from another continent? Bring over the natural predator from the other continent. Scientists in Texas have introduced four kinds of phorid flies from South America to fight fire ants. These USDA approved flies dive bomb ants and lay an egg inside the ant. The maggot hatches and eats away juicy tender delicious ant brain until the ant is nothing more than a zombie that wanders around for two weeks before the head falls off and the ant dies. A couple of these flies will cause the ants to modify their behavior and this will be a very slow acting solution to curb the $1 billion in damage these ants do to Texas cattle ranches and — oddly enough — electrical equipment like circuit breakers. You may remember zombifying parasites hitting insects like cockroaches."

bokske writes "An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill. Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, after the flagrant fumes prompted someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in. Just another day at the office."

An Indian man, who has seven daughters and a wife who must be chronically congested, has not washed himself in 35 years. He believes that not washing will ensure that his next child will be a boy. Instead of bathing and brushing his teeth, Kailash "Kalau" Singh stands on one leg next to a bonfire, smokes marijuana, and says prayers to Shiva. "It's just like using water to take a bath. A fire bath helps kill germs and infection in the body," Kalau was reported as saying. Kalau now tills fields after he had to sell a grocery store he owned, when people stopped shopping there due to his "unhealthy personality."

Having figured out everything there is to know about space, and being huge fans of Space Jam, NASA has left some of their sciencey stuff behind and made room for a pair of basketballs on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. One of the balls comes courtesy of The Harlem Globetrotters, and the other is on loan from the University of Chicago. It was used by Edwin Hubble in a 1909 victory against Indiana University. "It is only fitting that the team that has seen more of the world than any other in history would have a presence beyond the stratosphere," Globetrotters chief executive officer Kurt Schneider said in a news release.

Sikh police officers are pushing the British government to come up with a bullet-proof turban design so they can serve as firearms officers. Their religious requirement of wearing a turban prevents them from wearing the protective headgear a firearms officer must have. "We would like to follow any opportunity where we could manufacture a ballistic product, made out of a synthetic fibre, that would ensure a certain degree of protection, so Sikh police officers could take part in these roles," said Inspector Gian Singh Chahal, vice-chairman of the newly formed British Police Sikh Association.

gyrogeerloose writes "According to MacRumors, NIN's iPhone application has been approved. Trent Reznor has reported via his Twitter account that the now-approved app was resubmitted without modification, which suggests that Apple reconsidered their initial rejection. This should really come as no surprise to anyone who follows Apple news since it follows the company's typical pattern of handing potentially controversial iPhone apps, especially when it concerns high-profile rejections."

Sony Dong sang like the birds he was smuggling when he was stopped by an inspector at the Los Angeles International Airport. Dong was hiding more than a dozen songbirds attached to what has to be the world's most fabulous pair of socks. "He had fashioned these special cloth devices to hold the birds," said US attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek. "They were secured by cloth wrappings and attached to his calves with buttons."

Vincent West writes with news of a Russian project currently underway to populate the Arctic Circle with 70-megawatt, floating nuclear power plants. Russia has been planning these nuclear plants for quite some time, with construction beginning on the prototype in 2007. It's due to be finished next year, and an agreement was reached in February to build four more. According to the Guardian: "The 70-megawatt plants, each of which would consist of two reactors on board giant steel platforms, would provide power to Gazprom, the oil firm which is also Russia's biggest company. It would allow Gazprom to power drills needed to exploit some of the remotest oil and gas fields in the world in the Barents and Kara seas. The self-propelled vessels would store their own waste and fuel and would need to be serviced only once every 12 to 14 years."

jd writes "In startling revelations, convicted terrorist Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri admitted that Al Qaeda used public telephones, pre-paid calling cards, search engines and Hotmail. Al-Marri 'used a '10-code' to protect the [phone] numbers — subtracting the actual digits in the phone numbers from 10 to arrive at a coded number.' The real story behind all this is that the terrorists weren't using sophisticated methods to avoid detection or monitoring — which tells us just how crappy SIGINT really is right now. If the NSA needs to wiretap the whole of the US because they can't break into a Hotmail account, you know they've got problems. FindLaw has a copy of al-Marri's plea agreement (the tech-related information begins on page 12), and the LA Times has further details on his case."

dew4au writes "A reader over at SANS Internet Storm Center pointed out a certified letter his organization received from ARIN. The letter notes that all IPv4 space will be depleted within two years and outlines new requirements for address applications. New submissions will require an attestation of accuracy from an organizational officer. It also advises organizations to start addressing publicly accessible assets with IPv6. Is ARIN hoping to scare companies into action with the specter of scarce resources? This may be what's needed to spur adoption since there appears to be no business case for IPv6 deployment."

r3lody writes "Styling Web Pages with CSS: Visual QuickProject Guide, by Tom Negrino and Dori Smith, helps the beginning web designer learn how to use CSS in a simple, easy-to-follow format. This being my first exposure to one of the Visual QuickProject Guides by Peachpit Press, I was both pleased and disappointed when I received this slim volume. I was pleased in the presentation and clear descriptions given to each aspect of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). I was disappointed in the brevity of the text, and the lack of downloadable materials to use to follow the examples in the book." Read below for the rest of Ray's review. Styling Web Pages with CSS: Visual QuickProject Guide author Tom Negrino and Dori Smith pages 144 publisher Peachpit Press rating 7/10 reviewer Ray Lodato ISBN 0321555570 summary A beginner's guide to the proper use of CSS Each chapter starts with a brief explanation of its subject, followed by the major topics introduced via large, colorful titles. Finally, any "Extra Bits" provide follow-up explanations or point to where you can get further information.

Before any CSS is discussed, there is a general introduction including how the book is structured, the sample web site to be created, and what tools will be useful to create the site. For the tools, the authors recommend at least a text editor (not a word processor) and your favorite browser. BBEdit and TextWrangler are suggested for Mac owners, while Notepad is okay for Windows. I personally use Notepad++, which has styling cues for both HTML and CSS (as well as many others), so I would recommend it for Windows users. To insure compatibility with the browser, Tom and Dori say you should have Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. Strangely, Opera is barely mentioned in the book. I tested the examples using the first two. Finally, a true CSS editor might be useful, as it will provide you with your options. They suggested MacRabbit's CSSEdit for Mac users, or WesternCIV's Style Master for either Macs or Windows. I used Style Master 4.6 for Windows during testing.

After the introductory chapter, CSS is explained starting with a chapter on the basics, with simple guidelines for their use. Classes (which can be used many times) are contrasted with ids (which can be used only once per HTML file), and the benefits of using external style sheets versus internal styles is explained.

The next three chapters build upon each other to provide gentle instruction on how to layout and style the text and images. Formatting menus, tables and headings are tackled next, followed by a chapter devoted to browser differences. Finally, alternative menu and page formatting and CSS debugging is discussed.

All of the major concepts of CSS are presented so that a beginner can easily understand them. While some ways of utilizing CSS properly can be the subject of debate, the authors have chosen a rational approach that serves the basic web designer well. The result is a set of web pages that follow a simply understood design, yet ensures that the layout and format is isolated to the CSS style document, rather than the HTML.

Over and over, Tom and Dori provide useful links to web sites with additional information on the intricacies of CSS, as well as providing suggestions for programs to help you with massaging images and references to other books for more in-depth coverage.

The best way to fully understand what Tom and Dori are trying to explain is to replicate the example web site (Alpaca Repo). Unfortunately, there is no link in the book or on PeachPit's web site to a set of downloadable images and html files. The only way I was able to replicate most (but not all) of the examples was to look at alpacarepo.com. It has six pages, two style sheets, and two photos. The book shows other photos and more complete pages, so it's a partial solution at best.

Overall, Styling Web Pages with CSS: Visual QuickProject Guide is a nice introduction to the potentially confusing topic of the proper use of CSS. Many of the fancier techniques are avoided for the more common and useful ones. The short length of the book allows the beginner to avoid the feeling of intimidation that can accompany reading a 1,000 page text that covers everything you never wanted to know. Even so, I felt less than satisfied after I finished. I wanted a little bit more than I was given. Even if the book doubled in size, it would still be accessible yet it could then leave the reader with a feeling of contentment. As this is the first QuickProject book I've read, that may simply be the target they were shooting for.

One final wish for Peachpit: please include downloadable files that the reader can access to duplicate the Alpaca Repo website. I was continually frustrated when I wanted to replicate what I had just read about, yet was missing JPEG files or extensive text that I could use. Consequently, I never felt as though I had actually gotten the hang of CSS.

You can purchase Styling Web Pages with CSS: Visual QuickProject Guide from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews — to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

judgecorp writes "Twitter is being criticized for spreading panic about swine flu. This is not just knee-jerk Luddism 2.0: it's argued that Twitter's structure encourages ill-informed repetition, with little room for context, while older Web media use their power for good — for instance Google's Flu Trends page (which we discussed last winter), and the introduction of a Google swine flu map." On a related note, reader NewtonsLaw suggests that it might be a good idea, epidemiologically speaking, to catch the flu now vs. later.

tritonman writes "Obama wants to set a goal that the US spend 3% of its GDP on scientific research and development. 'I believe it is not in our character, American character, to follow — but to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again. I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development,' Obama said in a speech at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences."

Thanks to voters in the heart of the Swiss Alps the horror of nude hiking has finally come to an end. The people of Appenzell, Inner Rhodes voted to impose a 200 Swiss franc ($176) fine on anyone brazen enough to take off their pants and walk around at 7000 feet. Naked hiking started to become a problem last autumn when naked hikers — primarily Germans — started showing up in eastern Switzerland. "The reactions of the population have shown that such appearances over a large area are perceived as thoroughly disturbing and irritating," the government said in a statement.

suraj.sun writes with this quote from the Associated Press:"Britain's domestic spy agency — MI5 — is hunting for its very own 'Q,' of sorts. MI6's sister organization, which carries out surveillance on terror suspects inside Britain and gives security advice to the government, is searching for someone to lead its scientific work. Projects could include everything from developing counterterrorism technology to tackling a biological or chemical attack. 'Looking for a chief scientific adviser to lead and coordinate the scientific work of the security service so that the service continues to be supported by excellent science and technology advice,' MI5's Web site ad reads. MI5 has long had a roster of scientific staff tasked with developing high-tech gadgets, but an official said the service now wants a high-profile figure to lead pioneering work in technology and science. The adviser's work will focus chiefly on creating sophisticated new tools to help security service officers carry out surveillance and analysis work, said a government security official, who requested anonymity to discuss the work of MI5."

Death Metal sends this excerpt from an AP report: "General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could 'think like the bad guy.' Applicants, it said, must understand hackers' tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems. In the Pentagon's budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011. With warnings that the US is ill-prepared for a cyberattack, the White House conducted a 60-day study of how the government can better manage and use technology (PDF) to protect everything from the electrical grid and stock markets to tax data, airline flight systems, and nuclear launch codes. ... Nadia Short, vice president at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, said the job posting for ethical hackers fills a critical need for the government."

The Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology has put the server from The Pirate Bay on display. The server was confiscated in a police raid last year. The museum bought the server for 2,000 kronor ($240) from a member of the Bureau of Piracy, a Swedish group seeking the decriminalization of filesharing. "This is an object of contemporary society and a museum collects such items, and it is a part of our mission as a museum not to avoid complicated questions," curator Nils Olander said. The display is 98% complete and the museum staff has been waiting on a seeder since Thursday.

An anonymous reader writes "Contrary to what we discussed four days ago, Germany's registration authority, DeNIC, did not suspend access to wikileaks.de. After some investigation, Heise found out that the ISP ended the contract (in German, Babelfish translation) with Theodor Reppe back in December 2008, with the mandatory three-month notice giving him enough time to move wikileaks.de elsewhere — which he did not do. At the end of March, the domain wikileaks.de was released back to DeNIC."

N!NJA writes "Two major themes of our time — the desire to achieve energy independence and the furor over public bailouts — have collided in the drama surrounding swanky electric carmaker Tesla. Late last year, a New York Times column whipped Silicon Valley innovators and bailout-weary taxpayers into a frenzy. Valley professor and writer Randall Stross wrote that Tesla was hoping for government money to produce its cars, which only the very wealthy could afford. It wasn't exactly true, since the loan was intended to produce the $50,000 Model S sedan, not the $109,000 Roadster. Still, Stross called it a risky, waste of taxpayer money that would only benefit the wealthy and bailout VCs who'd sunk money into the money-losing company. Never mind, Tesla has developed two cars on less than $200 million — compared to the $1 billion General Motors spent developing the now-deceased EV1."

epee1221 was one of many readers to send word that Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has died of cancer at the age of 61. "Arneson is often described as an 'unsung hero' in the history of gaming, having been largely eclipsed by his collaborator Gary Gygax. While Gygax was known for developing the rules for Dungeons & Dragons, Arneson's work focused more on the role-playing element. Although the two split up, Arneson continued developing fantasy role-playing content, and later taught game design at Full Sail University." We discussed Gary Gygax's passing just over a year ago.

An Austrian man was forced to take his mom to court for stalking after she called him incessantly over a two-and-a-half year period. The 73-year-old woman, who would phone her son up to 49 times a day, was fined 360 euros ($478) by the court in the southern city of Klagenfurt. "I just wanted to talk to him. I can't talk to my son, nor my daughter. I've never seen my grandchild — who is already 15 years old," she told the court.

Jason Sahler writes with this excerpt from Inhabit: "The World Solar Challenge across the Australian outback is coming up, and we're already seeing some truly incredible vehicles going for the gold. Take the Bethany, a solar powered vehicle designed by Cambridge University students. The vehicle is capable of achieving close to 60 miles per hour. Doesn't sound too impressive? Try doing it by using the power required to run a hairdryer."

TaeKwonDood writes "You might think throwing out the occasional titillating article title is part of some grand media strategy. Discover is famous for whoring themselves out for page views with articles like Bizarre Aquatic Creatures Are Secretly Lesbian Necrophiliacs and Scientific American gets into the act with Rough Sex at 40,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which got them additionally ridiculed because that is about 30X greater than the radius of the Earth, but there are occasionally real articles that aren't all tramped up and just happen to deal with sex; some of it even kinky. All of it involving cortisol. The difficulty? Kinky people are okay with being monitored and they don't always realize what 'control' means in a scientific context, but they sure don't like to stick within the study parameters."

newtley writes "SafeNet paid $20 million for MediaSentry in 2005, but has just sold it to rival MediaDefender for a paltry $136,000, with a promise of more later. MediaSentry's new owner says the combination will allow it to 'dramatically expand its effectiveness.' Is it time for an official government inquiry into MediaSentry and the RIAA? A Chicago student said she was planning on killing herself because the RIAA promised her she'd land in court unless she paid almost $10,000 to 'settle' an alleged copyright infringement. She 'couldn't sleep, couldn't study, couldn't live a normal life because of the worry.' The RIAA 'evidence' came from MediaSentry, accused of operating illegally."

MollyB sends this excerpt from CNN: "A large ice shelf is 'imminently' close to breaking away from part of the Antarctic Peninsula, scientists said Friday. Satellite images released by the European Space Agency on Friday show new cracks in the Wilkins Ice Shelf where it connects to Charcot Island, a piece of land considered part of the peninsula. The cracks are quickly expanding, the ESA said. ... The Wilkins Ice Shelf — a large mass of floating ice — would still be connected to Latady Island, which is also part of the peninsula, and Alexander Island, which is not, said professor David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey. ... If the ice shelf breaks away from the peninsula, it will not cause a rise in sea level because it is already floating, scientists say. Some plants and animals may have to adapt to the collapse."

caffiend666 writes "According to a Health Day article, low levels of a stress hormone may be responsible for the obsession with routine and dislike for new experiences common in children with a certain type of autism. 'This study suggests that children with AS may not adjust normally to the challenge of a new environment on waking,' study researcher David Jessop, from the University of Bristol, said in the news release. 'This may affect the way they subsequently engage with the world around them.'"

A JetBlue employee was discovered by baggage handlers at Boston's Logan International Airport after falling asleep in a plane's cargo bin while in New York. He said he'd been accidentally locked inside the pressurized luggage compartment while taking a nap and called JetBlue officials when he realized he was in the air. The man wasn't charged with any crime and was returned to New York when it was determined he wasn't dangerous. The impromptu flight has led some JetBlue officials to consider a new ultra-cheap "roll around with the luggage" travel option for more adventurous passengers.

An anonymous reader writes "The Walt Disney Co and Hulu.com have restarted talks over offering shows from Disney's ABC television network on the online video distributor owned by NBC Universal and News Corp, paidContent.org reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources." The real question to me is when will they stop screwing around with Boxee users?

jamie points out news that Charter Communications filed for "prearranged" Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, primarily to reorganize some of the $21.7 billion in debt it has accrued. Quoting: "The St. Louis-based company seeks to emerge from bankruptcy as early as the end of summer and doesn't plan on selling any of its assets to competitors. After Chapter 11, interest costs at Charter, which has never posted a profit since going public in 1999 due to massive debt interest payments, will be cut in half to $830 million a year. The filing restructures about $8 billion of debt at Charter, which is controlled by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, but leaves about $13 billion of debt on its books. Allen will control 35 percent of the votes in the reorganized company. In the bankruptcy, Allen's 51 percent equity stake in the cable operator will be wiped out, along with shares of other stockholders. Allen also holds some debt and preferred stock."

Jane Q. Public writes "At the Federal Trade Commission's Seattle conference on DRM, FTC Director Mary Engle started off by referencing the Sony rootkit debacle, and said that companies are going to have to get serious about disclosing DRM that may affect the usability of products. She also said that disclosure via the fine print in a EULA is not good enough, and 'If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away, don't be surprised if the FTC comes calling.' Transcripts and webcasts are available from the FTC website." Update 18:13 GMT by SM: as Jane Q. Public was nice enough to diplomatically point out, the webcasts are no longer functioning, but transcripts are still available.

Scrapping ideas such as constructing a mile-long plastic ball for containment or building a million cardboard "Mr. Slave" scarecrows, China has decided to battle their fiercely cute gerbil hordes with contraception-abortion pills. The exploding gerbil population is threatening the local desert ecosystem, forcing forestry officials in the city of Changji to start distributing the contraceptive pellets. "Besides pregnancy prevention, the drug can induce abortions and thus largely reduce their breeding rate," said Du Yuefei, head of the epidemic prevention section of the city's forestry bureau.

Throw away your soap, detergent, and personal hygiene, the Japanese have invented odor-free underwear. Koichi Wakata, a Japanese astronaut living in the International Space Station, is testing the underwear created by textile experts at Japan Women's University in Tokyo. The shorts are designed to kill bacteria, absorb water, insulate the body and dry quickly. They also are flame-resistant, and anti-static. "The other astronauts become very sweaty, but he doesn't have any sweat. He didn't need to hang his clothes to dry. He can wear his trunks (underwear) more than a week," said Koji Yanagawa, an official with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Arto Stimms writes "The author of the e text editor is using the principles of open source to transform his company into an Open Company. Not only is he releasing the source, the company itself becomes totally open: no concept of bosses or employees. Anyone can join in at any time, doing whatever task they find interesting, for whatever time they find appropriate. This is in service of the idea of 'the real freedom zero': the freedom to decide for yourself what you want to work on."

Nancy Atkinson writes "Why is the James Webb Space Telescope (scheduled to launch in 2013) taking so long to build? Hasn't it had a huge cost over-run and several delays? Nobel Prize winner John Mather is the Project Scientist for JWST, and he addresses these questions and more in an in-depth interview, one of the few he's given about this next-generation telescope and successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Quoting: 'The hardest thing to build was the mirror, because we needed something that is way bigger than Hubble. But you can't possibly lift something that big or fit it into a rocket, so you need something that is lighter weight but nonetheless larger, so it has to have the ability to fold up. The mirror is made of light-weight beryllium, and has 18 hexagonal segments. The telescope folds up like a butterfly in its chrysalis and will have to completely undo itself. It's a rather elaborate process that will take many hours. The telescope is huge, at 6.5 meters (21 feet), so it's pretty impressive.'"

Owners of the Foxy Lady strip club in Providence, Rhode Island plan to hold a job fair on Saturday. They're looking to fill 30 positions, from strippers and waitresses to disc jockeys and bartenders, at that club and two others in Massachusetts. "I need more managers, I need more competent staff, and I need more attractive waitresses to go along with the ones I have right now," said co-owner Tom Tsoumas. I can't believe there aren't enough struggling single moms, poor students trying to get through college, or women with father issues in Providence. It sounds like paradise.

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua is hoping a new patriotic slogan emblazoned on T-shirts and baseball caps can restore self-confidence and overturn its battered reputation. "Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation," is the new slogan. "At international airports, in trains, in shopping malls, and almost everywhere, every Nigerian is a marked person," Dora Akunyili, information minister and self-styled chief image maker said at the launch of the re-branding campaign this week. Considering what's going on around them they could have also chose, "Nigeria: We won't force you to eat your family" or "Nigeria: No, we're not the place with all the genocide."

r3lody writes "An extremely large amount of the information we get on a daily basis comes from what we see. Imagery is therefore very important to those who want to communicate with us. When computers had advanced enough to be able to process images in a digital fashion, the market opened up for programs that could manipulate them in many ways. While many professionals would opt for the paid programs, there is a free alternative: GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program). The only stumbling block is learning how to use it properly. That is where Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition by Akkana Peck comes in." Read below for the rest of Ray's review. Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition author Akkana Peck pages 584 publisher Apress rating 8/10 reviewer Ray Lodato ISBN 1430210702 summary An easy-to-read, fairly complete introduction to image processing with GIMP I first attempted to use GIMP to fix a photograph or two of mine, but was quickly bogged down in the many options available in the program. That is why I was happy to get my hands on a copy of Beginning GIMP. The book is based mainly on GIMP 2.4, but the author included a preview of GIMP 2.6 in Appendix D. When I downloaded the latest verson of GIMP from gimp.org, I received GIMP 2.6.0. So I used the PortableApps version of GIMP (2.4.6) on Windows XP while reviewing the book and found only minor variations from the text.

One thing that strikes you as you open the book is the extensive use of color. Most texts are black-and-white throughout, but here you are presented with a pleasantly colorful tome. To follow the examples as best as I could, I downloaded the images available on the gimpbook.com web site. Although the images are supposed to be for the 2nd edition, several of those shown in the text for demonstrations purposes are not included. It appears that the images for the tools new to GIMP 2.4 are missing from the web site. This is surprising, since the 1st edition of the book covered version 2.4, so you would expect the images to be there.

The book begins by giving the reader a brief tour of the three main windows of GIMP: the Toolbox window, the Layer/Channels/Path/Undo window, and the Image window. Some basic navigation is presented, along with tear-off menus and how to modify tool placement. It concludes with a simple project layering a small image onto a larger one was given. Unfortunately, the files supplied from the web site did not include the PNG file used in the text, so it's difficult to reproduce the picture as shown. I later found the missing image in a GIMP-format file called wilber.xcf.gz. Unfortunately, xcf files are not discussed until the next chapter.

After the simple introduction, the author, Akkana Peck, gets into the most common adjustments a beginning user might need: re-sizing, cropping, rotating, brightening and darkening, and fixing red-eye. Each manipulation is presented with careful step-by-step instructions. I was able to match the pictures shown in the book, providing me with a level of comfort that I was learning the right way to fix photos.

One of the most common and useful methods of altering photographs uses the concept of layers. Layers act like cinematic cels, being mostly transparent with some opaque portions to lay on top of other layers. Chapter 3 gives a clear description of how to use layers to make changes. Two sample projects use layers to add text and another image to an existing photo, and to create an animated GIF using a series of layers for each frame of the animation. While I found minor differences between the text and the version of GIMP I used, I had no real problem understanding how the concept is applied.

You will probably need to do some freehand drawing from time to time, and chapter 4 covers the tools you'll need. While these tools are familiar to anyone who has used a basic painting program like Microsoft Paint, there are enough differences in how they are applied to warrant their own chapter. After creating some basic shapes (rectangle and circles), outlining and filling them, the author explores various fills and patterns. The chapter ends with a tutorial of creating a tree in a planter box, using just the drawing tools.

Every tool you use in GIMP works on the current selection. Knowing how to select just the parts of the image you want affected is important to getting the results you want. The author devotes an entire chapter to the numerous ways to select areas, add to or subtract from the selections, and fine-tuning them to only touch the parts you want touched. Basic rectangle, ellipse, and free-hand selections are followed by more sophisticated methods including the intelligent scissors and SIOX (Simple Interactive Object Extraction). The book also shows how to save selections as channels, so you can return to them in future editing sessions.

Sometimes, however, all you really need to do is a little touch-up on a photograph. Is someone's face in shadow or too much sun? Did you wish to get rid of some little irritating extra in a photo? Maybe you just wanted to draw attention to one subject and blur out the rest. Chapter 6 provides the information on how to make these basic adjustments. Darkroom techniques called dodging and burning provide minor adjustments to brightness, while cloning and healing can completely eradicate unwanted portions of the image. To draw attention to portions of the picture, you can enhance it using the blur and sharpen tools.

In addition to simple adjustments, GIMP offers a plethora of various tools to modify or create images. Under the Filters menu, you will find a large selection of tools. When I first looked, I felt that there were so many, who would need all of them? In the Filters and Effects chapter, Akkana Peck goes through them all, showing how they can be used to enhance your image. Because there are so many, she does not provide examples of each effect, but each one is described and you are encouraged to play. Remember, Undo is your friend here!

Chapter 8 delves into a very important aspect of your photos and drawings — the colors. First, the concepts of the RGB (Red-Green-Blue) and CMY (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow) colorspaces are described, followed by the HSV (Hue-Saturation-Value) space. A lot of time is used reviewing how these different colorspaces are used, and how they can be manipulated. The tools for breaking the image into its component layers, and demonstrations on how manipulating them can enhance your photo follow. The chapter concludes with some discussion on color profiles.

Now that you've learned quite a few niceties of GIMP, you need to learn more advanced techniques. The next two chapters go into more detail about drawing and compositing. The chapter on Advanced Drawing covers three main topics: mask and layer modes, realism using perspective and shading, and making new brushes, patterns and gradients. The Layer Mode section is the most interesting, showing how blending layers using various modes other than simple overlays can produce interesting effects. There are a number of examples, all easily followed and replicated. Once you've got a basic understanding of the advanced drawing techniques, it's time to put them to use on photographs. The chapter on Advanced Compositing shows how to use layer modes to play with images to improve their looks. You can brighten images, improve contrast, create eerie landscapes, fix noisy photos, and create panoramas, all using various layer modes. Many examples are shown, so you can get a good feel for the technique.

GIMP plug-ins provide automated tasks for the user. In fact, a number of GIMP's tools are provided by plug-ins. A variety of languages is supported. Plug-in scripts can be written in Scheme (the default — always installed), Python, and Perl (if available on your computer). If you need greater speed, you can write a plug-in in C. Chapter 11 uses the sphere plug-in as an example. Xtns — Misc — Sphere creates a sphere on a solid background. Akkana explains how to modify the script to provide a transparent background. A full discussion of the programming of the original script follows. Each step is carefully explained so only a minimal amount of programming background is needed to understand the concepts. Finally, examples in Python, Perl and C round out the chapter. Also included are explanations of how to find plug-ins and help on callable routines.

Unfortunately, there is so much to GIMP that one medium-sized book cannot contain it all. There is a potpourri of topics in the final chapter, including printing, scanning, setting preferences and the configuration files. The chapter ends with information on where to go for more help, source code, and images.

The appendices offer information on how to get and install GIMP, how to install it on older systems, and how to build it from source. Naturally, GIMP is always evolving, and Appendix D offers a list of enhancements in GIMP 2.6 that were not incorporated into the main text.

Over the course of reading the book, I had very little trouble reproducing the examples as demonstrated. I must admit that, despite the book's subtitle: From Novice to Professional, I am now at best an intermediate user. The depth of the capabilities available within GIMP is much deeper than the author could provide in the text. At almost 600 pages, this book is just about the right size, and provides the right amount of instruction for most people. The Additional Topics chapter provides information and links for further study and training, for those so inclined. If you are a beginner to image manipulation, and want to get fairly proficient with GIMP, then definitely get Beginning GIMP. It's not leaving my desk any time soon.

You can purchase Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

A 24-year-old woman admitted to police that she slipped some tranquilizers into her boss's coffee because she felt "he needed to chill out." Veteranarian John Duckett knew something was wrong shortly after drinking some of the coffee. Officers said the woman cleaned the cages at the the Reynolds Road Animal Clinic. I hope she at least had the sense to slip it in a cup of decaf.

TaeKwonDood writes "Do you want the bad news first or the good news? The good news is that about 80% of Americans think science knowledge is 'very important' to our future. The bad news is most of those people think it's up to someone else to get knowledgeable. Only 15% actually know how much of the planet is covered in water (47% if you accept a rough approximation of the exact number) and over 40% think dinosaurs and humans cavorted together like in some sort of 'Land Of The Lost' episode. What to do? Pres. Obama thinks merit pay for teachers makes sense. Yes, it will enrage the teachers' union, but it might inspire better people to go into science teaching. It's either that or accept that almost 50% of Americans won't know how long it takes the earth to go around the sun."

InlawBiker writes "Today, Amazon invoked the DMCA to force removal of a python script and instructions from the mobileread web site. The script is used to identify the Kindle's internal ID number, which can be used to enable non-Amazon purchased books to work on the Kindle. '...this week we received a DMCA take-down notice from Amazon requesting the removal of the tool kindlepid.py and instructions for it. Although we never hosted this tool (contrary to their claim), nor believe that this tool is used to remove technological measures (contrary to their claim), we decided, due to the vagueness of the DMCA law and our intention to remain in good relation with Amazon, to voluntarily follow their request and remove links and detailed instructions related to it.' Ironically, the purpose of the script is to make the Kindle more useful to its users."

rjshirts writes "In further proof that Planet of the Apes is coming to pass, researchers in Stockholm, Sweden have proof that primates can plan ahead. From the article: 'Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared. According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.'"

The Vatican newspaper says that the washing machine did more to liberate women than the pill or the right to work. "The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women - Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax," ran on Sunday to mark international Women's Day. It's strange that the Vatican made no mention of the liberating aspects of cooking, or doing what you are told.

Singularity Hub writes "For decades our options for interacting with the digital world have been limited to keyboards, mice, and joysticks. Now with a new generation of exciting new interfaces in the pipeline our interaction with the digital world will be forever changed. Singularity Hub looks at some amazing demonstrations, mostly videos, that showcase new ways of interacting with the digital world." Along similar lines, reader shakuni points out a facial expression-driven user interface reported on News.com for operating, say, an iPhone, explaining "This device is tiny and fits into the ear and measures movements inside the ear due to changes in facial expression and then uses that as input triggers. So [tongue out] starts or stops your iPod Touch; [Wink] rewinds to the last song; and [smile] replays the same song."

dAzED1 writes "My little brother is heading for training at 29 Palms as a Navy Corpsman with FMF. He gets a [Sailor|Soldier|Marine]'s pay, so while he can't afford gadgets, I can; since he'll be in a LAR unit, I was thinking of getting him a small video camera, an iPod, and some sort of solar recharger. Whatever he takes, he'll have to be able to carry in his pack, which is already going to be heavy with his medic gear. Other than the weight issue, I am having problems finding a solar recharger that doesn't get wildly differing reviews as to basic quality. He'll have plenty of sun and few clouds, but it needs to be lightweight, effective, and robust. With price not being much of a concern, what would you suggest for accomplishing this? Advice on a small robust video camera would be appreciated as well."

New Jersey State Police plan on going car-fishing with the help of divers and underwater robots next month. Environmentalists say many cars and trucks have been shoved into the lower Hackensack River, polluting the northern New Jersey waterway with gasoline, oil and antifreeze. The car-fishing crew will attach air bags to lift them to the surface so they can be hauled off.

A new French website allows children to pay older students to do their homework for them. Faismesdevoirs.com (domyhomework.com) allows children to buy answers to simple maths problems for 5 euros ($6), while a full end-of-year presentation complete with slides and speaking notes costs 80 euros ($100). Founder Stephane Boukris says, "I realized there was a gap in the market. Add to that a dose of insolence, a zest of arrogance and the internet, and you have faismesdevoirs.com." I thought cheating on homework was what older siblings were for.

rudeboy1 writes "Lars Ulrich, drummer for Metallica, and long time opponent of file sharing admitted to 'pirating' his own album, Death Magnetic last year. 'I sat there myself and downloaded "Death Magnetic" from the Internet just to try it,' he said. 'I was like, "Wow, this is how it works." I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download "Death Magnetic" for free, it's me.'"

TaeKwonDood writes "Your granddad's approach to fishing — throw the little 'uns back — may have hurt their evolution, but we can reverse that, says a group of researchers, with a change of policy. Fish have been 'reprogramming' themselves to be smaller and live longer. Welcome to evolutionary dynamics, Lamarck. But, no, they are serious. And it can be fixed within 12 generations. What do the smart people out there think about this? Are they using the term 'evolution' the wrong way?"

Liverpool's Hope University has launched a Master of Arts degree in The Beatles. "The Beatles, Popular Music and Society" consists of four 12-week taught modules and a dissertation. "There have been over 8,000 books about The Beatles but there has never been serious academic study and that is what we are going to address," said Mike Brocken, senior lecturer in popular music at Hope.

olddotter writes "A 24-page paper on a reverse brain drain from the US back to home countries (PDF) is getting news coverage. Quoting: 'Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups — precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the US economy and to business and job growth." Adding to the brain drain is a problem with slow US visa processing, since last November or so, that has been driving desirable students and scientists out of the country.