Slashdot Mirror

Pauly writes "In this interview, Marc Andreessen dismisses the likelihood of a renewed browser war based on the release of Mozilla 1.0. He cites Microsoft's current monopolistic market share, and dares anyone to try and fight it."

me! asks: "I seem to have this inability to write substantial chunks of code (500+) in exam conditions (for uni). I have been writing code for years for open source and commercial applications, so I know a thing or two. There is just something about exams and code that does not work for me. I find that I need to be sitting in front of a computer to get a problem out, to get in the 'vibe', have you will. I have done exams on computers (closed environment) that involve coding, and it work so much better for me. So what I am asking is...how do people tackle exams that involve solving problems on the fly, on paper, in exams?" I have this exact same problem, and I've never thought written tests were a fair way to measure someone's knowledge of coding. It's fine when you are asking questions about design and structure, but when you need to write code it falls way short. How do you feel about it?

YeOldeCurmudgeon writes "This story just posted on Yahoo: Federal Judge Denies Microsoft Motion to Dismiss Antitrust Case. Microsoft's motion to dismiss the suit filed by the 9 dissenting states was denied. The judge agrees the states can sue." An article in the San Francisco Chronicle summarizes the case's current state and what's coming up next.

dakota_kid writes "Congratulations to the North Dakotans at protectourprivacy.net! They succeeded in convincing more than 70% of North Dakota voters to repeal a law that allowed banks and other financial institutions to share (read sell) a customer's private information unless the customer contacts each institution and 'opts-out'. This effectively requires these institutions to obtain the permission of their customers before sharing their personal information, e.g., getting them to 'opt-in'. I know most people don't pay much attention to the activities of North Dakota, and perhaps bank privacy laws, but most of the United States has similar laws, and because of what the North Dakota voters did yesterday, civil rights activists in other states my follow suite. So, if that's you, get to work, you can do it!"

dakota_kid writes "Congratulations to the North Dakotans at protectourprivacy.net! They succeeded in convincing more than 70% of North Dakota voters to repeal a law that allowed banks and other financial institutions to share (read sell) a customer's private information unless the customer contacts each institution and 'opts-out'. This effectively requires these institutions to obtain the permission of their customers before sharing their personal information, e.g., getting them to 'opt-in'. I know most people don't pay much attention to the activities of North Dakota, and perhaps bank privacy laws, but most of the United States has similar laws, and because of what the North Dakota voters did yesterday, civil rights activists in other states my follow suite. So, if that's you, get to work, you can do it!"

Don Symes writes "Sony Music and Universal appear to be getting ready to allow downloads of singles for $.99 and albums for $9.99 without crippleware or restrictions on personal copying/burning." Another semi-interesting piece submitted by several people is this propaganda from the recording industry. 2.8 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were seized in the U.S. last year (9 million world-wide); from that the IFPI extrapolates that 950 million copyright-infringing CD-R's were actually sold, world-wide. How do you get from 9 million to 950 million? Mostly hand-waving .

netringer writes "The cable companies are planning to give the RIAA's case a hand and limit P2P file swapping. Yahoo has the Business Week story that cable companies are considering going away from the flat rate pricing model for cable Internet access. They plan to set a lower bandwidth cap for the flat rate and the raise the rates for bandwidth hogs who exceed the cap."

beckett writes "Yahoo is reporting that TrentSoft has released EphPod, software that allows Windows users to use all the features of the iPod. I'm suprised that it took a third party to provide support." Also note the previous story on the XPlay, a similar software package.

scubacuda asks: "DVD mail rentals are hot right now. Netflix, perhaps the most popular one, costs only $19/month (with free shipping). Since then, a whole new batch of similar DVD rental services have cropped up. What do Slashdot readers look for? Which ones are most reliable, have the best selections, provide free shipping and makes the best movie suggestions?"

Ami_Chan writes: "According to Nature, researchers at Bell Labs have created a new type of optical fibre. This fibre is hollow, and can be tuned to different wavelengths of light using 'plugs of fluid' and temperature changes within the fibre. This allows the fibres to process signals as well as transmit them. The full article is here."

grim_thing writes "I.B.M. scientists say they have created a data-storage technology that can store the equivalent of 200 CD-ROM's on a surface the size of a postage stamp. Writing in the current issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, researchers at I.B.M.'s laboratories in Zurich report that they have achieved a storage density of one trillion bits of data per square inch, about 25 times as great as current hard disks." Reuters also has a story.

grouchomarxist writes "There is going to be a partial solar eclipse tonight. It will mainly be visible by people in the southwest of the United States. People in Mexico will have the best view, there it will approach a full eclipse." Space.com has a nice page on it too. Enjoy this solar event!

Stalke writes: "On sunday, PalmSource (the spinoff from Palm responsible for the development of the PalmOS) announced that PalmOS 5 has gone gold. This latest version of the operating system includes support for ARM processors, Bluetooth and 802.11b, high-res displays (320x320; although Sony already uses even high res displays in its NR70) and more. Products with PalmOS 5 should start shipping in just over a months' time!"

Reuters is carrying an interesting story about Hong Kong's Octopus smart card system, which serves as a mass-transit fare card and is now being accepted by merchants for small purchases. A magazine cover story from last year goes more into depth. Interesting to note that the system started off anonymous, and is now being converted into a personally-trackable system.

Nevyan writes "SDSU Engineering students working in conjunction with real life designers create an electric hybrid vehicle that actually...well.. looks cool for all the right reasons. Participant in the Tour de Sol. I happened to see this vehicle on campus at SDSU and I want to buy one so badly." Njaneer.com has more information and photos - here's one to give you an idea of the size.

Guinnessy writes "Wired News reports that one of the most respected journalism schools in America is going to be teaching blogging as part of next semester's course. I find this quite interesting, especially considering the existing controversy over whether blogging, such as Slashdot, is real journalism or not. I still haven't made up my mind." "Blog" now takes the cake as the most ill-used word of 2002. Please draw distinctions between webpages with news, mindless link propagation, discussion sites, personal diaries or journals, etc.

Slashback below with a handful of updates on Walmart's OS-free PCs, another X-Scale PDA, Ralph Nader's plan to slip the Big Government carpet from beneath Microsoft, and how you can help save Norwegian history. Film88 gets slapped down by the copyright barons, but 802.11b gets a reprieve. Read on for the details.

Putting it all online. "As earlier reported on Slashdot, poor Ottar Grepstad has difficulties getting into his database. Now they're available for download! This is one geeky challenge you don't want to miss. :-) You'll find the story here (click on 'the password mystery'). 'use Xbase;', anyone? :-)"

The loyal opposition. Helmholtz Coil writes "Yahoo! is carrying a rebuttal to the letter James Love and Ralph Nader wrote to the OMB, from the fine folks at ZDNet. Some interesting points, very interesting tone to the whole piece. The question is, though-when can we expect a rebuttal to the rebuttal?"

They need a Free OS focus group :) Gecko writes "Remember the PCs without a pre-installed operating system, selling at Wal-Mart's? OSNews got their hands on one of these and they test Windows, Linux and BeOS. Apparently, the company behind these products had immediately replaced the on-board winmodem with a hardware PCI one, in order to be compatible with Linux, but their new AthlonXP/Duron PC models now come with a newer S3 Savage4 DDR integrated graphics card that is not supported by XFree86. One keeps wondering why they sell these PCs without Windows, if they are not able to test their hardware with other OSes before sending them to Wal-Mart for sale."

A new meaning for Pocket Rocket. Hot on the heels of XScale introductions and announcements from Toshiba and Fujitsu, Brian writes "Acer, Inc. today announces the Acer n20 series, eight months after announcing support for the Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 platform, the announcement also made Acer one of the few manufacturers to support both the Palm and Pocket PC platform. PDA LIVE.com again has the scoop and the photos :)"

I hope the pace picks up on the introduction of machines based on Intel's XScale processor.

Dog Star. DHR writes "An update to an earlier story shows that Sirius the satellite radio provider has finally come to their senses and withdrawn their petition to restrict the 2.4GHz band."

Intermission. bubblegoose writes "Yahoo has a story about Film88 being taken down by the MPA. They say it's because the servers were in the Netherlands, I think it more likely due to a good /.'ing."

Slashback below with a handful of updates on Walmart's OS-free PCs, another X-Scale PDA, Ralph Nader's plan to slip the Big Government carpet from beneath Microsoft, and how you can help save Norwegian history. Film88 gets slapped down by the copyright barons, but 802.11b gets a reprieve. Read on for the details.

Putting it all online. "As earlier reported on Slashdot, poor Ottar Grepstad has difficulties getting into his database. Now they're available for download! This is one geeky challenge you don't want to miss. :-) You'll find the story here (click on 'the password mystery'). 'use Xbase;', anyone? :-)"

The loyal opposition. Helmholtz Coil writes "Yahoo! is carrying a rebuttal to the letter James Love and Ralph Nader wrote to the OMB, from the fine folks at ZDNet. Some interesting points, very interesting tone to the whole piece. The question is, though-when can we expect a rebuttal to the rebuttal?"

They need a Free OS focus group :) Gecko writes "Remember the PCs without a pre-installed operating system, selling at Wal-Mart's? OSNews got their hands on one of these and they test Windows, Linux and BeOS. Apparently, the company behind these products had immediately replaced the on-board winmodem with a hardware PCI one, in order to be compatible with Linux, but their new AthlonXP/Duron PC models now come with a newer S3 Savage4 DDR integrated graphics card that is not supported by XFree86. One keeps wondering why they sell these PCs without Windows, if they are not able to test their hardware with other OSes before sending them to Wal-Mart for sale."

A new meaning for Pocket Rocket. Hot on the heels of XScale introductions and announcements from Toshiba and Fujitsu, Brian writes "Acer, Inc. today announces the Acer n20 series, eight months after announcing support for the Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 platform, the announcement also made Acer one of the few manufacturers to support both the Palm and Pocket PC platform. PDA LIVE.com again has the scoop and the photos :)"

I hope the pace picks up on the introduction of machines based on Intel's XScale processor.

Dog Star. DHR writes "An update to an earlier story shows that Sirius the satellite radio provider has finally come to their senses and withdrawn their petition to restrict the 2.4GHz band."

Intermission. bubblegoose writes "Yahoo has a story about Film88 being taken down by the MPA. They say it's because the servers were in the Netherlands, I think it more likely due to a good /.'ing."

Slashback below with a handful of updates on Walmart's OS-free PCs, another X-Scale PDA, Ralph Nader's plan to slip the Big Government carpet from beneath Microsoft, and how you can help save Norwegian history. Film88 gets slapped down by the copyright barons, but 802.11b gets a reprieve. Read on for the details.

Putting it all online. "As earlier reported on Slashdot, poor Ottar Grepstad has difficulties getting into his database. Now they're available for download! This is one geeky challenge you don't want to miss. :-) You'll find the story here (click on 'the password mystery'). 'use Xbase;', anyone? :-)"

The loyal opposition. Helmholtz Coil writes "Yahoo! is carrying a rebuttal to the letter James Love and Ralph Nader wrote to the OMB, from the fine folks at ZDNet. Some interesting points, very interesting tone to the whole piece. The question is, though-when can we expect a rebuttal to the rebuttal?"

They need a Free OS focus group :) Gecko writes "Remember the PCs without a pre-installed operating system, selling at Wal-Mart's? OSNews got their hands on one of these and they test Windows, Linux and BeOS. Apparently, the company behind these products had immediately replaced the on-board winmodem with a hardware PCI one, in order to be compatible with Linux, but their new AthlonXP/Duron PC models now come with a newer S3 Savage4 DDR integrated graphics card that is not supported by XFree86. One keeps wondering why they sell these PCs without Windows, if they are not able to test their hardware with other OSes before sending them to Wal-Mart for sale."

A new meaning for Pocket Rocket. Hot on the heels of XScale introductions and announcements from Toshiba and Fujitsu, Brian writes "Acer, Inc. today announces the Acer n20 series, eight months after announcing support for the Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 platform, the announcement also made Acer one of the few manufacturers to support both the Palm and Pocket PC platform. PDA LIVE.com again has the scoop and the photos :)"

I hope the pace picks up on the introduction of machines based on Intel's XScale processor.

Dog Star. DHR writes "An update to an earlier story shows that Sirius the satellite radio provider has finally come to their senses and withdrawn their petition to restrict the 2.4GHz band."

Intermission. bubblegoose writes "Yahoo has a story about Film88 being taken down by the MPA. They say it's because the servers were in the Netherlands, I think it more likely due to a good /.'ing."

Benanov asks: "I'm doing a literature review on the Feasibility of Linux for a public-access lab (i.e. not Computer Science students at a university but instead the entire student body would have a login), and I haven't found any detailed studies about any places where this is actually done. If you know of any citeable sources about studies / reviews, I'd really appreciate it."

Thrazzle Throne writes "The folks in rural Ruby Ranch got tired of lame dial-up server. They fought the phone company for use of their un-used lines and installed their own Dsl service. Very cool read."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Yahoo News is has an article stating that D-VHS is hitting the market this week. The upside: D-VHS supports full high-definition picture quality. The down side: $35 - $45 per movie (although available for less) and $2k for a player. Seems to me you'd lose a lot of that HD picture after a few viewings too. 4 studios are supporting it: 'JVC persuaded Fox, Universal, DreamWorks and Artisan to support the format after developing a new copy-protection standard it calls D-Theater to prevent unauthorized copying of the high-definition movies'."

Zadig writes "It appears as if Dell, Oracle, and Red Hat CEOs have decided to make 'Unbreakable Linux'. Could a giant arise amidst today's insecure and constantly patched linux world that could hold the title of Unbreakable Linux? I doubt it, but it will be fun to try, what are your thoughts?" There's a similar article on CNet.

blamanj writes "Hubble's newly repaired Infrared Camera, has produced some interesting new pics, including a "golden band" at the galactic center that is 'churning out stars at a torrid pace.' NASA press release and images here."

J.J. Lee asks: "I must say that I'm truly touched. I've just read some of the peoples' response to the System Administrators - College or Career? posting and I found it very encouraging that people have posted selfless, useful, encouraging and helpful advice to a complete stranger. I've been a Slashdot devotee for about a year now and I know this wasn't the first time I felt proud to be in such a community. The responses (for the most part) were well though out and had a genuine concern for this young fellow. Would the Slashdot community be willing to come together for an annual convention or event? If so, what would be the theme and what talks would a convention like this have? Just thought it might be great to meet some people and get to know each other on a non-virtual level." I've been doing Ask Slashdot for somewhere close to 5 years, and it's been one of the best experiences of my life. I sure wouldn't mind meeting some of the faces behind the nicknames (particularly this "Anonymous Coward" chap), what about you? If not a huge convention, would local get-togethers be more your speed?

ldopa1 writes "Scientific American has just announced their 2nd Annual Web Awards. The article outlines the very best of the best of the web in the following categories: Archaeology & Paleontology, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth & Environment, Engineering and Technology, Mathematics, Medicine and Physics. Sadly, Slashdot isn't on the list, but some great sites are. It's worth checking out."

FunkyGibbin' asks: "I've just started with a new company that has outsourced a project to translate a 4GL language - some 1.5 million lines of it - into J2EE. It's way behind schedule, and keeps on tripping over itself at acceptance test points (one item is fixed, others are broken). The outsourcing company chose as their conversion tool IBM's Rexx. They don't parse the 4GL to a syntax tree and then generate from that. They 'match patterns' which then generates the output. In addition, they're not even using the object oriented features of Rexx; it's in procedural Rexx! They have no regression test suite that runs through the original system and the newly generated system to ensure that they produce the same result [this apparently was 'our job' to do it manually]. Frankly, I consider the outsourcing company to have adopted completely the wrong approach, but I'm happy to be proven wrong if compiler construction or language translation experts can tell me that Rexx was their best choice, or even a reasonable choice! Any and all information gratefully accepted - this project has so far cost many dollars, and the board is unsure what to do with it."

rvaniwaa writes "Another hole in internet explorer has been discovered. This hole allows a hacker to root a user's computer whenever the user clicks on a gopher link. All versions of IE are affected and a Microsoft spokesman stated that the company is "moving forward on the investigation with all due speed""

Grab a cuppa joe, or whatever you drink at this time of day, and read on for this edition of Slashback, with updates and additional information on the strange (but statistically iffy) dangers of microbiology, Google's contest winner, and Sony's Linux kit for the PS2.

Location, location, location. A lot of people were interested in the Google contest whose winner was announced last week; Dan Egnor creator of that entry, writes "FYI, I've released the code for the winning Google contest entry under the GPL."

You mean they weren't just saying Hi? Anonymous Goodfella writes: "In an update to the Dangers of Being a Microbiologist, the AP [news.com.au] is reporting an attack on a Tennessee state medical examiner who gave evidence to an inquiry into the death of infectious diseases researcher Don Wiley. Coroner O.C. Smith was left tied with barbed wire to an apparent explosive."

Jakob Nielsen says Flash No Longer Evil Allen Varney writes "Given that Flash MX now supports the back button, Unicode, and accessibility, and has introduced p$user interface components, usability guru Jakob Nielsen today updated his famous 'Flash: 99% Bad' rant from October 2000. (Scroll down to see the update, stirringly titled 'Flash Now Improved.') His Nielsen Norman Group has formed a strategic alliance with Macromedia to start educating one million Flash designers in the fundamentals of good design. You did know that Flash .SWF is now an open format, right?"

Step 47: remove blindfold, scream. For those anxiously awaiting (or judiciously pondering) the Linux upgrade kit for the PS2, some words to consider from reader silvaran, who writes: "I just received my Playstation 2 Linux kit in the mail. I was disappointed to find that none of the monitors (3) that I had function properly with it. So I took to following the instructions on a blind install. It's not the most elegant of solutions, but it works. You need a blank memory card to install, but everything else is included in the kit. I'm on my way to a full Linux installation, complete with 100mbit networking, 40-gig HD and a USB keyboard and mouse; also included are full documentation on taking advantage of the PS2 hardware under Linux."

That blind install looks not for the faint of heart -- still, it would be nice if every distro included a simple walk through like that for when a monitor just isn't handy :)

Reader microwerx adds some a few more words of advice and caution: "[T]he PS2 Linux Kit will not read CDRs, so you'll have to use the supplied 10/100 Ethernet Adapter to get stuff in and out of the machine. One very good thing about the PS2 Linux Kit was the documentation regarding the Emotion Engine chip, etc. There's at least 2000+ pages of information regarding how it all works in glorious PDF format. There is also a OpenGL-like library (ps2gl) that supports the hardware. I also understand that SDL also works. Another is the amount of equipment you receive. You get a USB mouse and keyboard, a 10/100MBPS Ethernet Adaptor, A VGA convertor, and a 40Gb Hard drive. And all of this stuff appears to have some future use (you may have to remove Linux to use them nonetheless). So, once again, unless you just want the novelty of having a PS2 Workstation, developing console games, or setting up a small home server, I don't believe that you'll gain too much additional functionality. An overall rating of 3 1/2 stars out of 5 is certainly in order (because after all, it is for game development)."

coronaride writes: "This article over on Wired discusses the issue near and dear to every sysadmin and support tech's heart. I, myself, never read any manuals that accompany the products I buy (but when does cheese-whiz really need instructions anyways?) unless something majorly goes wrong! The article talks about how some countries, including Japan, try to spice up their product manuals in order to entice the users to read them. Is this just too much work for our lazy American manufacturers to do?"

Phantoman asks: "I work for the Campus Cinema at University of California Davis and we are looking into getting a Christie or Barco DLP system for Digital Cinema projection. Now if this is the wave of the future I ask you all to compare 35mm to Digital. The price tag on a digital setup is roughly $140,000. Without content. 35mm isn't all that cheap, but if my old Century 35mm projectors break I can get replacement parts for usually less than $100-300. If something goes wrong with the DMD (digital micromirror device) I have a feeling those digital projector parts are going to cost me big. Are the movie theater chains going to get stuck with big costs down the road because Hollywood producers want to save money and have tighter control over distribution? As if they didn't a monopoly already: it costs us between $500-1000 (or half of our profits, whichever is more) for each night we show a movie!" At those prices it doesn't sound like digital theaters will overtake 35mm theaters anytime soon, but what would happen if Hollywood suddenly got the "bright" idea to limit 35mm reel distribution within the next few years?

"Digital is all well and good for the production end, but is anyone going to be able to foot the cost for digital on the presentation end or are we going to end up a straight-to-video world? Also, If anyone wants to help donate to a nonprofit for our digital system, email me. We were the second school to have 35mm, I would like to be the first to have digital."

soulctcher writes "An article on Yahoo! talks aout how a group of scientists now have evidence that the Milky Way galaxy, and others like it, are able to slice and dice their way through older galactic structures."

Yahoo has a story about how Sun is practicing a sort of floating workforce - many employees have no permanent desks, they just come in and log on to a dumb terminal, err, thin client. Besides being a sneaky way to encourage employees to arrive ever earlier at work, it probably is cheaper to run the business off a few large Sun servers - at least for Sun.

texchanchan writes "Yahoo reports (warning: picture of cow fetus in bottle) that scientists have grown functioning, 'kidney-like' organs from cloned tissue, and put them back in the progenitor where they do their kidneyish job quite well. The scientists cloned embryos, from which kidney cells were extracted, and 'seeded [this] kidney tissue onto artificial structures that they hoped would grow into kidneys when transplanted back into the steer they were cloned from. ... By themselves, the kidney cells formed a small, kidney-like organ.' Regeneration here we come... especially if somebody learns how to do just the desired organ, not a whole new you with its potential for human rights, etc. To be published in June's Nature Biotechnology (costly registration required)."

shokk writes "Those of us who have played with CrystalFontz and Matrix Orbital serial LCD displays for geeky messaging will get a kick out of the 77k+ LED Solar Ark by Sanyo (only 21k of which are using as red/green/blue combinations for the presentation display). Not only does this behemoth show off its fantastically huge array of solar panels generating 530,000kWh/year and its high efficiency white LED technology, but it also sports a non-chemical water purification system in a very Feng Shui way. Lighting to restrooms underneath is provided by fiber optic paths from the white LEDs in the giant display above." It's a small plant as power plants go (600 kilowatts, when many plants are hundreds or thousands of megawatts) but it was cheap to produce, aesthetically pleasing, and of course, non-polluting, so that Godzilla won't visit.

An anonymous submitter sends: "Yahoo! News is reporting that all 15 member states of the European Union have just ratified the Kyoto treaty to cut greenhouse emissions by 8% over the next ten years (the US agreed to 7%.)"

So we get a number of case mods submitted in any one week, and while they are very cool and fun and we like to post them, they don't really warrant a whole story of their own, so I decided to do a recently submitted case-mod round up. Anyhow, if you are interested, in this first set we have a beautifully engineered mailbox among others. If you are interested in such things, read on.... First, ViceClown writes: "I thought I'de seen it all but here's another in what seems like a never ending barage of weird and out-there case mods. this guy took a regular old aluminum mailbox and turned it into a computer. Guess it gives new meaning to that old phraze, "You've got mail!""

BeoR writes "Modding is extremely popular nowadays... with the exception of some, a lot of mods end up in disappointment. Some mods just don't look right... This article is aimed at making "Case Modding" easy... as well as letting you try out any kinds of mods on your case without even scratching it... Check it out"

smallstepforman sent in a link to the aquatank, featuring very real, and probably unhappy, fish! That said, you'd think a computer case would be a happy place for a lizard or snake that would like a little bit on warmth.

We also ran a sectional story which I thought would be interesting for the round-up: PC Cases with Side or Top Mounted Drive Bays?

And, finally, JoeD writes "For my sins, I was emailed the following link: The Pink Hello Kitty Laptop. I struggled to find the adjectives to adequately describe this case mod, but decided that words are inadequate for some things." I think this might be the first custom modded laptop that we've featured on slashdot. Hope the next one won't be as disturbing.

Yokai writes "An article to be released in Science shows that organic farming makes sense. The 21 year study by a Swiss team shows that even though the organic patch had 20% less yield than conventional farming, the input of fertilizer and energy was reduced by between 34% and 53%, and pesticide use by 97%, leading them to believe that organic farming makes sense. Also, the soil from the organic plot was healthier and held more organisms- including those that kill pests."

angst_ridden_hipster asks: "Like many people, I have a bunch of machines I use regularly. These include Linux machines, BSD machines, a Mac OS X machine, and a Windows machine. These machines are on a number of networks. All have internet connectivity. Some of them are always powered on. A few of them are not. Obviously, I have a bunch of accounts. And, it goes without saying, I have a bunch of data. What are the best approaches to sharing data? I want to be able to securely access my home data while at work, and from one machine to another, etc. Opening ssh terminals is the approach I have traditionally used, but I'm beginning to wonder if some mirroring software (e.g., Unison) might be in order. It'd provide the function of backups, as well as guaranteeing availability. Would it be wiser to tunnel nfs over ssh? Or is there some better option? Assuming I actually start mirroring data across multiple machines, I'll need to organize it in a portable taxonomy. This is almost easy, since I use cygwin on the Windows machines, so I can assume a standard Unix-ish directory structure. But this gets more complicated when there are scripts or other code involved. What about application/platform-specific data? How do other people organize their data, anyway? Are there any useful standards? I'm hoping people will describe their approaches, and why they think they're (not) the best."

blake213 writes "Newsfactor is reporting a story on how WiFi Metro and Green Packet are teaming up to do a 90-day field test of combined WiFi and cellular romaing technologies in the S.F. Bay Area. Supposedly a user can roam between two coverage areas with uninterrupted service."

Aengus asks: "We have a round of job interviews coming up and the people we will be interviewing will be of different backgrounds, so we are looking for a core set of general questions that you could apply to any IT/CS candidate that would display that they knew what they were talking about. ie questions that are not language or job specific. So far all we have come up with 'What algorithm is your favourite or most commonly used?'....." What questions have you been asked on interviews you have participated in?

Wrighter the Pessimist asks: "I've been seeing a lot of stories recently about cable modem companies raising rates and baby bells winning monopolies on broadband. It seems that indeed cable companies are already raising rates, or will be in the near future. Shouldn't broadband be getting cheaper, with improvements in technology? Or has demand already surpassed the capability? Or, have the monopolies just decided to give themselves a raise? What can we as consumers do to prevent prices from going sky high?" The first article mentions the need for higher pricing for users who tend to use more than their fair share of the bandwidth. The second article is about AT&T raising its rates, which is not news to many Slashdot readers, I'm sure. I would think that in situations like this, that a tiered pricing approach might be better than applying a flat rate. Think you are going to be a high bandwidth user? Pay a fair price to your upstream. Web and e-mail only? Pay less. So do you think the current trend in broadband pricing is fair, or are broadband providers pricing themselves out of the market?

Vilorman writes: "We've all heard the one about the spammers begin sued. Now, an Ausie spammer is suing back, for being blacklisted. Claiming damages and equipment replacement costs and so on. The whole article is over at Yahoo. So, I guess now, not only are we subjected to the spam, but we can't block it either?"

scottennis writes "Yahoo is carrying a story about Iceland's plan to wean itself from fossil fuels. The article states that Iceland is giving itself 30-40 years to kick the oil habit completely. Of course some researchers estimate that in 30-40 years we won't have much of a choice."

Jon James writes "eWeek is reporting that a number of Linux vendors will announce on Thursday that they have agreed to standardize on a single Linux distribution to try and take on Red Hat's dominance in the industry. " The vendors in question are SuSe, Caldera, Conectiva, and Turbolinux. However, as the article also points out - Red Hat has a very well established lead in the corporate market - and Sun's decision to create Yet Another Linux Distribution (Sun Linux! Now With McNealy Vision!) will make the waters even more muddy.

Slashback with a load of updates for you tonight on modchips for Xbox, Nigerian spam-scams, missing Mozilla hackers, Guillaume Laurent on Murray on Guillaume Laurent, and more. Read on for the details.

Sun giveth and taketh away. axehind writes: "This ZDNet article tells us StarOffice will no longer be free. The decision completes the transition of the StarOffice suite back to being a paid product, as it was when Sun bought the software along with its maker, Germany's Star Division, in 1999. Sun says it will stop free downloads of StarOffice 5.2 at midnight on Wednesday night."

On the other hand, The Pi-Guy writes: "It has been confirmed by Sun that Solaris 9 will be on Intel platforms - you can get it for free on DVD here. Quite surprising considering that a few months ago they were saying 'No S9 at all on x86!'"

Update: 05/29 03:03 GMT by T : As several readers have noticed, the page no longer indicates Solaris 9 once you've chosen x86 as your platform of choice -- looks like a case of mistaken identity.

Strong opinions tend to draw answers. Guillaume Laurent writes "Given that Murray mentions me in his interview, and that I disagree with most of what he says, I felt the need to reply. Enjoy."

Six seems a tad low. supafly613 writes: "Six people were arrested in South Africa over the weekend on suspicion of being involved in the infamous 'Nigerian' e-mail and letter fraud. Four of those detained were Nigerian, one was Cameroonian and the sixth was South African. Police in South Africa believe that the six are part of an international fraud and drug-dealing cartel, sending out thousands of e-mail and letters in an attempt to defraud."

Lost in cyberspace ... Mindphunk writes "Six hackers remain to be found so that Mozilla can be relicensed under the LGPL and GPL as well as the MPL original license. This is really important if Mozilla is going to interoperate readily with all kinds of free software. Perhaps the power of Slashdot can find them in time for the 1.0 release?? The missing hackers are:

• David Nebinger
• 'Uncle George'
• Sanjay Gupta
• Makoto Kato
• Thierry LeBouiland
• Jiwei Wang"

This is a followup to our earlier mention of the missing hackers.

Still waiting for NetBSD :) llordsmiff writes: "According to this, the world's first Xtender Xbox modchip preorders were shipped today (24 May). There are installation pictures also. "It plays back all import and backups on all worldwide sold Xbox machines." It's also supposed to play any DVD, regardless of region."

Wonder if this will be 'content protected.' neema writes: "Just a bit of an update to an older post, but Revolution OS will apparently be released on DVD (region free) in September for 20 dollars. Trailer and first 8 minutes can be found here. I, for one, welcome the chance to see it."

babbage1815 writes: "Intel Corp. has cut prices on some of its microprocessors by as much as 53 percent as the world's largest chipmaker's investments in manufacturing over the past two years are starting to pay off." Most of the cuts are at the very high end of the line -- it'll be interesting to see what happens to the prices of the competing AMD offerings.

We saw a cultural and generational coup d'etat this month, at least in cinematic terms -- if we were watching. Star Wars was challenged by millions of rebellious kids, who decided to choose a new kind of myth. The next generation unseated its elders -- as is the right of every generation - and is making its own culture, moving away from ours. In doing so, these kids balked at mega-hype, rediscovered earnestness, simplicity, the love story, some patriotism, punctured a billion-dollar balloon, and maybe even sparked a (relative) movement away from whorish sellouts, back to simpler story-telling. I, for one, sure hope so.

The evidence: In its first four days, Star Wars: Episode 2 -- Attack of the Clones sold nearly $117 million worth of tickets. When Spider-man opened two weeks earlier, it earned $115 million in just three days. Not only that, but the nerd-arachnoid drama earned another $48 million in box office during the weekend George Lucas' elephantine epic opened. And it shows no signs of slowing down. Spider-man is now on track to massacre Star Wars , perhaps out-earning it in the early days of the summer by as much as $100 million, if projected patterns continue. What happened? You can hardly call Clones a failure, but seeing it seems as much a reflex as a choice. And the grosses are below expectations, where as Spider-man is re-defining what a mega-hit movie is. I think Lucas and his movies have outgrown their audience, losing relevance to the young, the real avatars of culture, and are suffocating under their own enormous inertia and weight.

The late mythologist Joseph Campbell (who helped Lucas craft the Skywalker/Vader saga) wrote in The Elements of Myth that the hero-journey -- the often rebellious trek far from loved ones and home, finds a great teacher, battles evil forces in the world -- is inherent in every great myth, from cave-dweller's tales to Tolkien to Star Wars. It's certainly central to the story of Peter Parker, an unhappy and awkward kid who overnight goes from suffering at a nasty Queens high school to soaring over Manhattan's skyscrapers in search of the Green Goblin (this movie's Dark Side rep). In fact, every great myth has a lonely hero, a masked villain or two, and thinly-disguised spiritual choices between forces of good (God/a.k.a. The Force) or Evil (the literal Dark Side of the universe which shows up, Campbell wrote, in paintings that are thousands of years old.)

Why is Spider-Man's version surprisingly drubbing Lucas's, when he's cornered the global franchise on cinematic myth-marketing and he's one of the master cinematic marketers and hype-meisters of all time?

Several possible reasons. The Spider-Man saga is a simple love/adventure story, much like the first Star Wars, which didn't take itself nearly as seriously as the pompous sequels, pre-quels and tie-ins hatched at Lucas's secret ranch. In Spider-man, a nerd feels powerless, gets bitten by the bug, becomes powerful, goes on to confront great evil (and doesn't get the girl). Luke Skywalker, too, was powerless and trapped when we first met him. Then he met Obi-Wan, got in touch with the Force, went soaring around the universe to battle evil -- and didn't get the girl, either. Since the audience and industry expectations of Spider-Man were lower, the movie could afford to be looser, jokier -- more human. But poor George Lucas had dug himself a monstrous hole.

Simply because it's new (on film, at least) , Spider-Man arrives shrouded in less hype than Star Wars. When George Lucas decided to resuscitate his epic after a nearly generation-long respite, he could have chosen at least somewhat of a classier route and put some limits on the marketing that now engulfs big movies. Instead he acted like Jabba the Hutt, gorging on every dollar he could get. The producers of Lord Of The Rings curbed the marketing and toy tie-ins with corporations peddling food and dolls to kids out of respect for Tolkien. That makes Lucas, who showed no such restraint, all the more hypocritical and pretentious - polluting the series with trolls, Ewoks, aliens, soldiers, Jar-Jar Binks and his goofy patois, and all their inevitable action figures, light sabres, T-shirts and soda-cup representations.

Lucas created a brilliant film saga, then undercut it by demonstrating that there were few limits -- maybe no limits -- on what he would do to make still more money. The message to kids especially was follow the Force, but rake in the cash.

A franchise like Star Wars ought to be allowed to -- and can afford to -- retain some of its dignity and still make tens of millions. The movies make a fortune in their own right, a common experience that transcends reviews and tie-ins. When is enough enough? Lucas crossed the line, and cheapened his movies.

He also neglected to bone up on Campbell's books on the power and elements of myth. Spider-man is a simple love story about teen-aged angst: a kid almost anybody can relate to is suddenly transformed by a great power, grapples touchingly and hilariously to come to terms with that, and confronts a single bad guy and vanquishes him, though not without cost. Sound familiar? It ought to. That was more or less the feeling, despite the Imperial Death Star, of the original Star Wars. Spider-man was a cartoon myth -- part of the once-brilliant Marvel Comics factory, balm to nerds of the time -- and the movie doesn't forget its roots in the dialogue, plotting or action.

But what is Attack of the Clones about? The Skywalker genealogy? The Empire's evil origins? The birth of the Empire's Troopers? The rise and fall of the Queen of Naboo and her tormented lover and complex offspring? Trade unions and their relationship to the Galaxy? Legislative bodies and their place in galactic history? Lucas approaches the life and times of Darth Vader in much the same way biographer Robert Caro explores the life and times of ex-president LBJ (his latest book that's 1,300 pages long -- and that's just one volume of a projected four). Do we really care precisely how Anakin Skywalker got pissed off and turned to the Dark Side? Or would we -- especially the youngest among us -- be happy to see Yoda flashing his light-saber around and doing his Jackie Chan imitation?

Spider-Man is interesting on other levels, too. It's a very New York movie, set in working-class Queens and amidst the spires of Manhattan. It is unabashedly domestic and patriotic, even as Star Wars is pointedly other-worldly in tone and feel. Consider the Spider-man scene where New Yorkers cheer our hero from the Queensborough Bridge. It's heavy-handed but interesting. The movie ends with Spider-man draped around an American flag on a skyscraper not far from where the World Trade Center Towers used to stand. Holed up in his California cocoon, Lucas seemed to fall out of touch with post-9/11 America. He had too much genealogy to worry about. But the producers of Spider-Man, with a few last-minute adjustments, read it right. Star Wars was conceived in an era when Harrison Ford's Han Solo perfectly typified a generation's disenchantment with government and politics. Peter Parker has a different view, and so do the millions of kids making his movie a smash.

Attack Of The Clones is a cautionary tale, all right, but perhaps not the one Lucas intended. The real lesson is, if you're trying to make great movies aimed primarily at the young, avoid pomposity, self-indulgence and too much self-reference. Keep the story simple, clear and touching. Remember that movies mirror life. Films like this are about love, loss, conflict and fantasy. Spider-Man keeps that very much in mind. Attack Of The Clones seems to have forgotten it. That's why kids are flocking repeatedly to a new variety of myth, unseating the reigning one.

Sir Joltalot writes "There's a great guide at Tom's Hardware about choosing a good case. They also look at a few very interesting and slick cases you can get and discuss recent trends in modding. A good read if you're new to building computers or thinking about modding a case for the first time." I've been planning to build a new machine for a few months now, so this is timely for me.

terrymr writes: "The movie & recording industry are lobbying hard for the European Union to require all CDs & DVDs to carry unique source identifiers to aid in combatting piracy. They are also demanding tougher penalties for infringers. It seems the only people who would be hit by the ID code requirement would be the legitimate manufacturers as the pirates simply wouldn't bother."