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Ismenio writes with the following review of the online film distribution system Movielink.com. Here's his Quick summary: "Pros: convenient, prices are OK, selection includes some "new" releases, no late fees. Cons: no widescreen format, technical issues in download, only 24-hour-watch period, no search function, for US only." Read on for the rest of his review.

We had just a couple of references here on Movielink.com and some comments but no reviews. Well, I have tried it and here are my thoughts on it.

For those not familiar with that, they call themselves an "IP based movie rental service". You basically rent movies by downloading them to your PC (as of now, only WindowsMedia or RealPlayer formats) for watching at a convenient time.

The media files have about 512Mb which in my case (AT&T cable modem) takes about 50min to download. You register using your credit card and they don't ask for too much information there.

The price varies with an average of $3 and the selection is OK, not great. You can see some titles that have been just released for PPV channels. There's no search function, so you have to browse using their categories (action, comedy, blah, blah). In some cases you can see a small trailer for the movie.

They have their own download manager that looks a little bit like those p2p programs. You can see the progress of the download and can launch the player at the end. You have a period of 30 days to watch the movie BUT, only 24 hours to watch it once you hit "play". Of course you can pause or watch it again but only within the 24-hour period after the first play. I think they should give you at least 5 days for that.

The quality is OK, not great but quite alright to watch something for fun. I think it's something around SVCD. My greatest complain is that they only have full screen versions of the movies. No widescreen.

Once you download the movie you have to be connected to start playing it. That's because you have to "authenticate" yourself. So, another bummer. You can't download something to watch on a flight for example. Well, I guess you may be able to start playing at home and then stop it and start again on the plane, but I didn't try that. That would be one advantage over a DVD since you wouldn't be using the DVD-drive thus saving some battery time.

I had problems playing the first movie and had to call support. They gave me a code to rent the movie again but after 3 tries they though there was something wrong with the movie! Bingo, other customer had the same complain. Then I decided to try another movie and had to call support again, which by the way was quite knowledgeable and attentive. I could not download the movie. Here's where I decided I would not use the service again: they recommend that I disabled my firewall (ZoneAlarm) to download it! Even after I did that, it didn't work. The problem seemed to be that I was on my home network on a LinkSys router. They asked me to bypass the router, hook the computer to the cable modem directly and it worked! Here's my complain: I never had to do that for anything, from my company's VPN to my other download services. So if I have to tweak my network/router just to use their service, they've lost a customer. Well, maybe that was just me!

I really liked the idea of being able to download a movie and watch it on my PC, without having to wait for it to come in the mail (NetFlix) or drive to my local video store twice (to pick up and to drop off). I watch the DVDs on my computer anyway, so it doesn't bother me that I don't use a big screen.

But they need to at least work on that download issue and enhance their website (at least include a search button) before I could use their services on a regular basis.

Hope this is helpful to you folks!

Slashdot welcomes reader features and reviews -- thanks to Ismenio for this one.

Sean Stidman writes "Looks like the Brits are planning to release their secret files on many UFO sightings, including the famous Rendlesham Forest incident. These files should be ready for download by the end of this week, which I guess means by tomorrow. Are their servers going to be able to handle the load?"

jimb writes "Yahoo! reports: 'What's happening is that Microsoft sales reps have been instructed to be on the lookout for any businesses that are migrating some of their machines to the Lindows OS,' Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio told NewsFactor. 'If [the sales reps] think there's a real threat of some pretty large numbers of defections to open source, they can request authorization from Microsoft higher-ups to offer steeply discounted pricing."' I wonder how many businesses will now start pondering aloud the possibility ... I'm sure OS X is on MS's mind as well.

acacord asks: "I am the Network Admin for a medium-sized law firm (hold the flames, please). We are one of the few Macintosh-based firms left. All of our workstations (near 150) will have been migrated to Mac OS X 10.2.2 by the end of the year. We have a couple users who think that they know more than the IT department and therefore insist that they maintain WinXP boxes on their desks. How should I configure a segment of my network for them, and them only, to make sure that the remainder of my networks are not susceptible to any of their natural security 'features' . Any and all ideas are welcome."

nitzan writes "Quoting from the article: 'the software translates the voice on the other side of the line into a three dimensional animated face on the computer, whose lips move in real time synch with the voice allowing the receiver to lip read.' Unfortunately this only works with laptops, but a pda version is in the works." The company website has a demonstration.

Anne Thwacks writes " Andrew Grillet has decided that the Digial PDP8 - the first ever minicomputer, will rise from the dead. He is calling it the PDQ8. Sure others have done software emulations, and even hardware clones, but he is not just building a hardware clone, but trying to revive the whole idea of 12 bit computers!"

bsdmike writes "DaemonNews has a link to an news article that reports that Yahoo! has saved something like $470,000 by switching HotJobs from Sun Solaris to FreeBSD. It's really amazing what affordable hardware and great Open Source technology can do!"

bsdmike writes "DaemonNews has a link to an news article that reports that Yahoo! has saved something like $470,000 by switching HotJobs from Sun Solaris to FreeBSD. It's really amazing what affordable hardware and great Open Source technology can do!"

nessdog writes "Your old friend in the back-yard can read you like an open book according to this article from the BBC. They report that your dog's power of reading your body language is better than a chimps. So next time you tell a lie, just remember who might be watching..."

nicsterrr asks: "What does one do when a promising open source project stops dead with no word from the developer(s)? I have been considering contributing to a certain sorceforge hosted project over the past few months, but unfortunately all development seems to have stopped and the main developer has vanished (from the internet at least). I understand that the GPL states that GPL source code can be used in derived work if the licence is unchanged, but I am hesitant just to 'hijack' the work done by (it seems) just one person, without first having an understanding of what his thoughts are first. In addition, there are almost no supporting comments in the code, and no separate developer documentation. What would you do in this situation if you were interested in furthering the undocumented, unfinished, and currently abandoned work (which at first glance seems to have potential) of someone else, and your attempts to contact them have been in vain?"

rppp01 writes "The BBC is reporting that Lucas Arts is putting the Star Wars universe online this December. Go here to read all about it. I know lots of people who are now starting to leave Everquest. Is this the next everquest? Will we have massive Star War fans calling in sick everyday in attempts to become a jedi? Will Jar Jar be friend or foe?"

bscottid writes "Woo-hoo! The monorail passed in Seattle!. And, it was driven by an amazing grass-roots effort of people who saw a way to use technology to get us moving again here in The Emerald City. Everyone mark your calendars, because in 2007 you're invited up here to take a quick, scenic ride around the beautiful city of Seattle! (Begin Simpsons references now)" It's also worth pointing out that in the recent california election, a pair of bills were passed which put aside approximately $10b for the construction of California's high speed rail project.

irish_spic writes " Accorting to this AP story (in yahoo news), the public management ministry is setting up a panel of scholars and computer experts, including Microsoft officials in order to study the use of Open Source software in the government. The article cites concerns about costs and security as the reason for the study. Me wonders if they are serious or just trying to get discounts from MS."

JoeGee writes "MSNBC.com is reporting that a new study aided by data from U.S. Military satellites is causing scientists to revise the frequency of Tunguska-like impacts downward. Military satellites used to detect rocket launches and/or nuclear flashes are also good at monitoring the frequency of flashes in the atmosphere caused by ten meter to one meter sized objects burning up in our atmosphere. The study has concluded that Earth encounters much less interplanetary debris than was previously thought, and Tunguska-scale events only occur on average of once every millenium."

Adam9 writes "As Salon fights for survival, they have introduced a new advertising program that allows you to receive a free 12 hour pass by clicking through about 10 seconds of advertisements. Currently, the advertisements are from Mercedes-Benz. According to the article, they've lost about $79.7 million from their start in 1995. They also have about 45,000 subscribers right now." Jamie also pointed out this article from the WSJ, as well as the words from Salon themselves about it.

ianb104 writes "I was rushing home to catch the ending part of game 6 of the 1997 Kasparov vs. Deep Blue match, when the news came over the car radio that Kasparov resigned after less than one hour of play, to my great dismay. Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion brought back this memory and then some." Read on for the rest of Ian's review. Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion author Feng-hsiung Hsu pages 298 publisher Princeton University Press rating 9 reviewer ianb104 ISBN 0691090653 summary A real-life historic triumph of the nerds

My wife gave me this book as a birthday present. I was thrilled that finally someone wrote what really happened behind the scenes at the two historic matches, but Behind Deep Blue turned out to be far more than just about the matches. The early part of the book is equally absorbing and full of surprises.

Who & What

Feng-hsiung Hsu, the author, was the father of the Deep Blue project and a troublemaker. When you see a section title like "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" in a book about computer history, you know something is up. What he did in this particular section would have been an awful career move today, like landing him in a jail. As it was, he almost got kicked out of grad school. This precarious position played an important role in how the project got started.

The book has two main parts: the beginning and the history of the project at Carnegie Mellon University, and the successful conclusion at IBM, including the two matches with Kasparov.

Carnegie Mellon

During the matches, the IBM web site de-emphasized the Carnegie Mellon part of the project. The instant chess books also failed to fill the void. It was a shame.

The main ideas behind the project apparently were formed at Carnegie Mellon--several of them at a fateful night in Hsu's apartment. I know little about IC design, but his description of the new ideas discovered at that night, underlying the first single chip chess move generator, made me feel like that I could design the chip myself. His thought process in coming to the discovery is also quite interesting. Hsu seems to be a diehard Trekkie. In his description of the selective search algorithm "singular extensions," he repeatedly used the Starship Enterprise in his analogies.

For fans of AI, the book contains a big surprise. Even though Deep Blue's triumph over Kasparov might be considered as a major victory for AI, several of the early members involved in its creation had a definite anti-AI opinion. An exact quote from the book is "AI is bullshit." Hsu himself had an ambiguous feeling toward AI. The main approach taken by the Deep Blue project was to push the technology envelope, which is certainly non-AI, but he also talked of the need for chess knowledge repeatedly in the book.

The central story at Carnegie Mellon revolves around the rivalry between a ragtag group of graduate students and a powerful professor, Dr. Hans Berliner, who is a former World Correspondence Chess Champion and world renowned authority on computer games. I have a feeling that there are things left unsaid in the book, but the intensity of the rivalry and the male egos all come through clearly. One of the thorny points to the students, strangely enough, was that they were not Dr. Berliner's students but the press kept on saying they were.

After the students came out with Deep Thought, the first Grandmaster strength computer, the incorrect press perception produced a very funny story. The story of "The Poor Lieutenant Colonel at Darpa" tells how an overzealous reporter wrote a cover article for the British magazine Spectator, purporting to have discovered that the U.S. Department of Defense had enlisted the service of chess computers. In the process of this discovery, the reporter phoned Dr. Berliner, whom the reporter thought was heading the Deep Thought project, for the inside scoop, and afterwards cold called a Lieutenant Colonel at Darpa in charge of expert systems research, which had nothing to do with the Deep Thought work...

IBM

I did not realize that the Deep Blue team played Kasparov publicly three times. The first time was with the machine Deep Thought, during the transitional period when the team moved to IBM. Kasparov won that match 2-0. The publicity from this match and the subsequent confusion between "Deep Thought" and "Deep Throat" were partially responsible for the new Deep Blue name. The original Deep Thought name came from the sci-fi trilogy Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.

The story of the completion of the first Deep Blue repeats a theme that recurs throughout the book--the machines always barely work in time. "Four Hours to Spare" describes a period when the first Deep Blue chip had to be used in a new program and had to win or tie an exhibition match, in order for the project to survive. The team barely got the new program "working" with four hours to spare. They managed a tie.

The late-to-arrive situation in the 1996 Deep Blue match itself was not much better--the very first ever game played by Deep Blue was none other than its first game with Kasparov. Deep Blue itself was being put together only weeks before. Deep Blue won this game. What Kasparov said right after the historic game is priceless. There should have been a microphone at the playing table. The behind-the-scenes coverage of this match is more detailed than available anywhere else, but not quite as extensive as that of the final match in the book.

Deep Blue's loss in 1996 spurred a series of activities by the team. I don't recall seeing them mentioned explicitly during the 1997 match. A new Deep Blue chip was designed, along with new software tools for match preparations. The story of "The Phantom Queens" is quite amusing. The team discovered a design bug in the new chip that caused phantom queens to be generated on the chip's internal chessboard. One way to fix the bug was to slow down the chip by disabling a design feature. As a result of this slowdown, we have the only match outcome of what might have happen if Deep Blue had been running at the same speed as commercial chess programs when competing against them. I will let you find out for yourself what the outcome was. A workaround was later implemented, and Deep Blue did not suffer the same slowdown in the match against Kasparov.

The big chapter on the 1997 match alone is worth the price of the book for me. It was a great deal of fun to read. The wild accusations, the missed opportunities, the psychological war game off the board, the battle through the media, and plain simple misunderstanding all make for wonderful reading. The arbiter, Carol Jarecki, summed it up quite well, "This match has it all." I don't want to spoil all the fun for you, but I will mention two interesting tidbits from game 1 and game 6. Deep Blue played the last move of game 1 as a result of bug, although the game was already lost. Kasparov's team was surprised by the move and spent all night to find out why Deep Blue played the move and concluded that Deep Blue played its move because it saw a very deep mate if it had played what should be played... Game 6 was widely reported as Kasparov forgetting his own opening preparations. It could very well have been a deliberate gamble instead. All the other programs at the time, including the 1996 version of Deep Blue, very possibly would have lost the white side of the game.

Other Stuff

The epilogue of the book contains a short description of what happened after 1997, including an aborted attempt to answer Kasparov's repeated challenge for a new match. The first appendix gives autobiographic materials. The other two give selected game scores and pointers for further reading.

General Comments

This is not a chess book, and you don't need to be a chess player to enjoy it. The few paragraphs on technology should be readable for high school students or younger kids with scientific interests. Or you can just skip them.

The book is not really one contiguous story, but a collection of short stories and anecdotes. I read the whole book in one setting, but you could easily read the book in smaller chunks at a time.

Quibbles

Okay, you probably don't need an index for this book, but it would have been nice to have one. Interestingly enough, at www.bn.com, the review mentioned "a strange, inaccurate index", which must have there in the prepublication copy.

Conclusions

I highly recommend the book for general reading. You are not going to learn how to build something like Deep Blue from this book, but you get a good sense of what kind of human struggles it takes. Computer scientists and electrical engineers should get a good kick out of the book, but a layperson can enjoy the book just as well. If you have young kids with interests in engineering or science, this might be a good gift for them.

You can purchase Behind Deep Blue from bn.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 "An article running on cnn.com talks about how Peter Chernin, CEO of Fox and COO of News Corp., says media and tech companies should work together in the best interests of both industries. It's an interesting new angle for them anyway, with the point exentuated by George Lucas (of American Graffiti fame!) showing up to say 'there is no free lunch'."

Over at NewsForge, Roblimo asks the musical question of which of the several recently released "desktop oriented" Linux distributions won't survive the coming year. It's nice to see user-centric distributions at all, but it really is a niche market for now. Apropos that, psykocrime writes "The fine folks at UnitedLinux have issued a Press Release announcing UnitedLinux 1.0. Should be interesting to see whether this sinks or swims, considering the general ambivalence (at best) or even outright hostility (at worst) that most of the talk about United Linux has met, from the Linux community. Questions about GPL compliance, per-set licensing terms, etc... is this the future or Linux or just another albatross?" And J. J. Ramsey writes "BeyondUnreal reviews not only Xandros Desktop's installation, but also shows what this distro's $99 price tag actually gets you. Read more here. LinuxPlanet also has an in-depth review of its own."

Slashback tonight brings you quick updates on the stolen copy of Newton's Principia, Linux at Wal-Mart (dot com), Free software vs. free software in India, and food for the desperate computerist. Read on!

Honestly, where would they have unloaded that anyway? yorgasor writes "Yahoo reports that the stolen copies of Newton's Principia have been successfully recovered. The thieves are also suspected of other thefts from several Moscow and St Petersburg libraries."

They have everything. An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Lycoris joins Lindows and Mandrake in being preloaded for walmart.com: 'The new $199 Desktop/LX Certified MicroTel PCs include the Desktop/ LX operating system. Desktop/LX also includes the following incredible software features without any additional downloading:'"

Who needs a war? Krieger writes "I found this link to the definitive browser wars at HardOCP, where you get to play checkers to prove your browsers superiority. Taking the browser wars to a new high/low?"

Here's the hook, can you pass that sinker please ... JoeWalsh writes "According to this article, earlier this month RMS visited India and tried to convince them to use Free (as in freedom) Software. Then along comes Bill Gates this month, handing out free (as in beer) software, and suddenly India isn't interested in RMS's message. A choice quote: "We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own." Did RMS tell them they couldn't use GNU/Linux, or is this more Microsoft propaganda at work?"

Slashback tonight brings you quick updates on the stolen copy of Newton's Principia, Linux at Wal-Mart (dot com), Free software vs. free software in India, and food for the desperate computerist. Read on!

Honestly, where would they have unloaded that anyway? yorgasor writes "Yahoo reports that the stolen copies of Newton's Principia have been successfully recovered. The thieves are also suspected of other thefts from several Moscow and St Petersburg libraries."

They have everything. An anonymous reader writes "Looks like Lycoris joins Lindows and Mandrake in being preloaded for walmart.com: 'The new $199 Desktop/LX Certified MicroTel PCs include the Desktop/ LX operating system. Desktop/LX also includes the following incredible software features without any additional downloading:'"

Who needs a war? Krieger writes "I found this link to the definitive browser wars at HardOCP, where you get to play checkers to prove your browsers superiority. Taking the browser wars to a new high/low?"

Here's the hook, can you pass that sinker please ... JoeWalsh writes "According to this article, earlier this month RMS visited India and tried to convince them to use Free (as in freedom) Software. Then along comes Bill Gates this month, handing out free (as in beer) software, and suddenly India isn't interested in RMS's message. A choice quote: "We are a poor country. We cannot develop operating systems and platforms on our own." Did RMS tell them they couldn't use GNU/Linux, or is this more Microsoft propaganda at work?"

Ninja Master Gara writes "The much-hyped "IT", Dean Kamen's Segway Human Transporter, started selling Monday with a no-refund deposit of $495 on the $4,950 people mover for deliveries starting March 2003 on first come first serve basis. "The Segway Human Transporter is one of the most famous and anticipated product introductions of all time," Jeff Bezos, chief executive and founder of Amazon.com, said in heralding the availability of the vehicles on the online retailer's site." It's also the most overhyped and overpriced toy ever, and I'm kicking myself for posting it since that just contributes to the problem.

An anonymous reader writes: "Reuters reports that a special, secretive appeals court on Monday said the U.S. government has the right to use expanded powers to wiretap terrorism suspects under a law adopted by Congress after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The ruling was seen as a setback for civil libertarians who have said the expanded powers, which allow greater leeway in conducting electronic surveillance and in using information obtained from the wiretaps and searches, jeopardize constitutional rights. In a 56-page ruling overturning a May opinion by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the three-judge appeals court panel said the Patriot Act gave the government the right to expanded powers."

mesozoic writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that the European Union is considering *another* antitrust suit against Microsoft, this time having to do with anticompetitive behavior in the market for mobile phone software. While I haven't seen any signs Microsoft is going to dominate the industry here in the States, cell phones are a much bigger deal in Europe, so I can understand why they'd be nervous."

ali_bubba asks: "A funny thing happened to me today, I have beeb unemployed for over 5 months, and all of a sudden my ex-Boss calls me and demands (well, it sounded like a demand) that I help her out, because her entire corporate LAN was down. Naturally, she knows that I'm kind person, but boy what attitude, so I did help her save the day. She did not even bother calling me back to thank me, (like if you get slapped, turn the other cheek, as Jesus once said) Has anyone else had this happen to them before? What actions did you take?" While I can understand that some people in this situation may harbor some ill will if place in this situation, it may behoove you to see this as an opportunity, and at the very least, an opportunity to make a little money off of your old company. It doesn't pay to burn bridges, especially if they need something that you can provide. For those who have been in this situation, how did you handle it? For others, if you were offered work from your old job, would you do it, and under what conditions would your perform said work?

Meshach writes "The globe and mail has an article about how yahoo is starting to charge for their email service. Payment is not mandatory but if you don't pay you have many restrictions on your accont. It says that while many are angry about the change enough people are paying that it is helping Yahoo rebound from their slump. This seems like a recent trend in e-business." The conventional wisdom around web stuff that's been free, but converts to pay is that "they die off, no one wants to use it anymore etc etc", but I think what people fail to realize is that for many businesses, less people is *just fine*, if those people are paying.

dm24_99 writes "According to this article at Japan Today, the Japanese government is considering abandoning Microsft Windows in a plan to boost computer security within the government. The government is very interested in alternatives, especially Linux." Of course, like the bank reform being proposed, who knows when this will actually happen.

lostchicken writes "The Senate has approved the first viable "kid-friendly" system that doesn't try to control the Internet. See the story here. It is an opt-in system that allows a .kids.us domain to be pointed at a site approved as safe, as opposed to an adult only domain type system."

TamMan2000 writes "This story over at Yahoo makes it look like the federal government is going after some spammers with gusto... Although they seem to be busting them for fraud via spam rather than just the fact that they spam, it is still good to see them going after them. Also interesting, it looks like one of the things they are nailing them for is the fraudulent 'remove me from your mailing list' that actually brings more spam."

TamMan2000 writes "This story over at Yahoo makes it look like the federal government is going after some spammers with gusto... Although they seem to be busting them for fraud via spam rather than just the fact that they spam, it is still good to see them going after them. Also interesting, it looks like one of the things they are nailing them for is the fraudulent 'remove me from your mailing list' that actually brings more spam."

Slashback with more unintentionally odd clip art in Microsoft work for fire, Las Vegas monorail progress, the resolution of SonicBlue and TiVo's legal dispute, and more. Read on for the details.

Well, while we were switching things around here at the ad agency ... An anonymous reader writes "While looking around on Microsoft's site checking out the new Tablet PCs I noticed something very out of Place. In one of their Flash Demos for the Tablet PC there is an Apple Powerbook 1400! To see it for yourself, the flash is located here (then "Tablet PC Overview Demo," then "Tablet PC," then "Powerful") The first computer is really that Powerbook! Pic here."

What about to the legal brothels? Sacarino writes "Back in April, Slashdot ran a story about the Monorail project Las Vegas was embarking upon. It would appear that things are progressing nicely. "It's ugly" critics will be put to shame, the designers did a great job of making it non-obtrusive. (if that's possible in Vegas) Soon you too will pile off the airplane, trudge onto the monorail, then run into the casino to spend that money....ahh, Vegas."

Out of court, out of mind. Enry writes "SONICblue and TiVo have dropped the patent infringement lawsuits they filed against each other. The press release reads: "We believe our energies are better spent expanding the market for Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) rather than fighting each other. Both sides believe in the merits of their respective positions, but the overall success of the DVR category is what is most important to the companies at this time." Take that, AdAge!"

Sounds like a nice way to watch movies. For those intrigued by a 640x480, QWERTY-keyboard color, clamshell-case PDA as embodied by the Zaurus 5600, patrickoehlinger writes "Just found news and pictures about the new Sharp Zaurus SL-C700 released in Japan. With a 640 x 480 pixel display, a small design and a great keyboard! Golem.de has a article with pictures, but it's in German."

Would the BBC spy on you? An anonymous reader writes "The previous discussion on RedSheriff on slashdot was extremely confusing as well as mostly off-topic. The fact is, the BBC is downloading spyware to your machine when you surf their site. Very disappointing and surprising. I suggest e-mailing them to let them know what you think. The problem and remedies are covered in Google groups: "

Torgo's Pizza writes "The FCC just granted final approval for Comcast to complete its $30.5 billion purchase of AT&T Broadband. Despite consumer worries of increased rates and clear domination of the market, Chairman Michael Powell stated, "The benefits of this transaction are considerable, the potential harms negligible.""

MISplice asks: "I have been searching for a Linux alternative to SASIxp which is a student administrative databse for K-12 schools (it does grades, schdeuling, and holds demographic and medical data). I have found the OpenSIS project which seems to be on hiatus and never past the implementation stages. Does anyone know of such a product or project that is under development? If not does anyone know if these types of products will work under WINE?" Have there been any new developments in this area since this article from 2000?

bill_gates_jnr writes "When Attack of the clones came out many Dubliners thought that the Jedi Archives looked similar to a landmark in Dublin, the Long Room in Trinity College Dublin. The library administrator of TCD, Robin Adams has story written a letter to Lucasfilms suggesting the company should acknowledge a debt to the original architect Thomas Burgh. " I was in the Long Room a few years ago - it's a gorgeous room. But while we're acknowledge debts, perhaps Lucas can also acknowledge a more significant debt.

Twirlip of the Mists writes "Today SGI announced the Origin 3900 server, the world's densest computer. How dense? How about 16 MIPS R14000A processors and 32 GB of RAM in a 4-rack-unit 'superbrick,' for a grand total of 128 processors and 256 GB of RAM in a single rack. That makes the new machine the densest single-system-image computer in the world; it's even denser than most blade systems. Just for fun, the server also includes a whole bunch of 64-bit, 133 MHz PCI-X slots (from 11 up to hundreds and hundreds, depending on configuration). There's coverage of the announcement on ZDNet, CNET, and InfoWorld, as well as on SGI's own site."

lowvato asks: "I have recently been tasked with building two enterprise level portals. One is already in the making using Apache Jetspeed and the other is in the planning stage. I have been impressed with Jetspeed and its progress and versatility as a portal environment. One portal needs a very high level of security and interaction with disperate web services while the other is more of a community building service with CMS, forums, and so forth. Upon a limited review of the commercial portal solutions, I have found it hard to determine what they offer over open source solutions (especially since a few are based on products like Jetspeed or UPortal). I would like to hear what others have found using commercial and open source portal products."

SailorBob writes " After nearly two years in production, Hollywood-backed Movielink is giving the green light to its online movie rental service. The Web site, a joint project of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros., will debut Monday with a limited selection of first-run and classic films from the five major motion pictures studios, in a test of the technology to select U.S. residents. Though the film studios have licensed content to other video-on-demand sites, it is the first time they've introduced a service of their own. Of course, just like the new music services, this is also only available to US residents. "

Nefrayu writes "After false rumors having been posted on the /. forum lately about the 7th season of SG-1, Gateworld.net and the SciFi Channel have now confirmed that the show will be carried on SciFi through the 7th season. Along with this announcement is the "surprise" that Dr. Daniel Jackson (portrayed by Michael Shanks) will be returning full time for the said 7th season. Excerpts from an online chat with supervising producer Joseph Mallozzi at SG1Fans can be found here. "

jutus writes "I work for a company which creates medical simulators using off-the-shelf components (including Linux and MacOS X). We're looking for battery powered LCD VGA monitors, but can't seem to find many appealing solutions. This just happens to be one of the rare times when Google has failed me. Does anyone know of a good starting point for such monitors and other industrial PC components?"

zero0w writes "nVidia has released the official OpenGL accelerated driver set for FreeBSD 4.7 STABLE. Check out the nVidia Driver page for more detail. According to the page, this release should be considered as initial beta. So don't count on it to build a day-to-day production system, yet."

zincks writes "David Gelernter (Yale Professor of Computer Science, and Unabomber target) has a story in the NY Times which states, (1) Operating systems are relics of the past, (2) We should be able to access data anytime/anywhere, by (3) seeing a stream of 3D documents(?), so (4) he's written such software, and (5) that's all you should care about so it doesn't matter that it runs under windows. This is a fantastic (definition: based on fantasy : not real (?)) vision of the future by a premier technologist."

ispcay writes "Yahoo has published an article on a Linksys vulnerability. An easily exploitable software vulnerability in a common home networking router by Linksys Group could expose thousands of home users to denial of service attacks, according to a security advisory issued by iDefense, a software security company." The article's kinda sparse on details, but does mention that the vulnerability is fixed in the latest firmware release. Upgrade 'em if ya got 'em!

ispcay writes "Yahoo has published an article on a Linksys vulnerability. An easily exploitable software vulnerability in a common home networking router by Linksys Group could expose thousands of home users to denial of service attacks, according to a security advisory issued by iDefense, a software security company." The article's kinda sparse on details, but does mention that the vulnerability is fixed in the latest firmware release. Upgrade 'em if ya got 'em!

thegrommit writes "It seems one implementation of elliptic curve cryptography has been broken. It took four years to break a 109 bit key, but the contest sponsors (who provide encryption products for Cisco, Nortel and Palm among others) believe it's still impossible to break their 163 bit keys. The real question is, for how long?" Update: 11/07 01:59 GMT by T : Dan Kaminsky wrote to point out that the key here was really brute forced, and not broken -- that is, no fundamental flaw was discovered in the algorithm.

Anenga writes "A Windows (and somewhat WINE compatible) Gnutella client, Shareaza, has released a public preview of its next version which includes a re-designed Gnutella protocol they call "Gnutella2". Gnutella2 (or "G2") dumps the Gnutella broadcast model and uses a new global searching method with UDP connections. It also features compression to limit hub-to-hub (G2 Ultrapeers) bandwidth, Tiger Tree Hashing etc. Shareaza has released a small description of the revised protocol here, but plans to release a full spec to the GDF after the release of v1.7 Final. Gnutella2, which is really a revised Gnutella protocol, will also be free and open for anyone to use in their clients. Shareaza and G2 may give Gnutella - an open and free P2P protocol which has been struggling to keep up with the times against Kazaa, eDonkey and other P2P spin-offs - the stability and power it needs to attract the closed and commercial FastTrack Network users when or if the network folds."

The most common story submission about the U.S. elections held today seems to be that the consortium which typically conducts and reports exit polls has encountered technical difficulties. If only they'd had an open beta program... There have also been a number of stories highlighting problems with new electronic voting machines, a topic Slashdot has hit several times in the past. CNN, the NY Times, and essentially every other U.S. news outfit are following the election results as best they can.

An anonymous reader writes "The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser is a joint project between the US Army and the Israeli Defense Ministry, with much of the work being done by TRW. Tuesday they had a spectacular success when they shot an artillery shell out of the air."

Rob Miles writes "Yahoo! News has this article about how NASA is paying aeronautics engineer James Oberg $15,000 to write a monograph gathering up materials answering the skeptics of the 1969 Apollo Moon Landing, point by point. It's a shame that even $1 has to be spent to debunk these conspiracy theorists with too much time on their hands. And it's unfortunate that the nutters will see this as validation of their ridiculous claims ('if our charges weren't true, NASA wouldn't bother answering them' they'll snivel.)"

Slashback with a reader review of the IMAX version of Star Wars Episode Two,the continuing courtship of AIM and ICQ, episode 408 of Futurama, and more, including How to go around the world without going anywhere at all. Read on below!

Give me IV any old day. Rupert writes with a review of the newly IMAX-ified Episode II of the Star Wars saga:

"Since it was my wife's birthday today, last night I took her to see Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones: IMAX edition. Notwithstanding the overuse of colons, this is a movie worth seeing, even if you think you already saw the movie.

If you haven't already seen AotC, you no doubt have your reasons, and there isn't anything in this edition to make you change your mind. Likewise, the plot still has gaping holes and Anakin is still moody, so if those were enough to make you hate this movie, you won't want to see it again. The action sequences gain little from the new presentation, as objects move too fast across the large screen to follow.

On the other hand, if you want to see the pores in Natalie Portman's skin, or the individual hairs in Christopher Lee's beard, this is the movie you've been waiting for. I suspect that some time was spent re-rendering the digital characters. Yoda, Wattoo and Jex Dexter stood out in close up, looking more real than the human actors.

Some scenes were cut from this edition. Some I didn't miss, such as Ani and Amidala frolicking in the meadow with the giant bed bugs. Others, such as almost all the scenes in Palpatine's office, and many of the Jedi Council made it even harder to follow what was going on.

You might be wondering where you can see the movie."

Always cut with the Groenig. ari_j writes "It looks like Fox is giving us a new season of Futurama. From the page, "Season Premiere Sunday, Nov. 10th at 7PM/6C". Sure enough, my local Fox affiliate is carrying it as stated. From tv.yahoo.com: '"Crimes of the Hot", Episode #408.
Al Gore's head holds an emergency summit in Kyoto, Japan, to deal with global warming caused by robot emissions.'"

This does not look good on a resume. nautical9 writes "As a follow up to Henrick Schon's dismissal from Bell Labs last month for falsifying data, many of his former co-authors are retracting their articles from the AAAS's prestigious Science magazine. It's apparently the largest retraction for the journal ever. Bell labs is also pulling six different patent applications of his. Here's the Wired article."

Is this the basket you ordered for all your eggs? With regard to the AOL / ICQ integration CowboyNeal mentioned the other day, nxtw writes "At this moment, ICQ users can send messages to AIM users, but AIM users cannot send messages to ICQ users or be seen on your buddy list. However, AIM automatically postpends any screenname or group consisting of all numbers with -ICQ when added to your buddy list. (This applies to the beta AIM 5.1.3009 client.)"

They're in Australia, of course they have flying dreams. VileScum writes "Back in May a reader posted this story of an Australian Guy who built a 747 Sim in his garage. As reported in the Sydney Morning Hearld The builder and a group of his friends are now doing a round the world sim flight for charity. The full story can be found here. The details of the actual flight can be found here."

outlier writes "The AP is reporting that federal law enforcement agencies are offering to keep the names of companies that have been victims of major cracking crimes secret. The goal is to encourage victims to come forward, so that the government can 'prosecute cases while at the same time achieving the kinds of protection and addressing the concern that the business community rightly has.'" My favorite part is how FBI agents will now "discretely" arrive at victims' offices.

ewhac writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly will deliver her opinions on the Microsoft anti-trust suit tomorrow, after close of markets. Much speculation revolves around whether she will approve or reject the settlement negotiated by the Justice Department. Should she reject it, she can only offer suggestions for improvement; she cannot impose amendments. Watch this site for further developments :-)." Reader acacia points out that the opinions should be posted at this site, if you want a quick bookmark.