Slashdot Mirror

Anonymous Coward sent in a note about Microsoft being granted a patent on a "Digital Rights Management Operating System". Anything more to say? Nope, don't think so. After Windows XP will be Windows DRM.

Misha asks: "I have been following Transmeta's news briefs for a little while and besides the stock's constant decline, there seems to be some life to the Crusoe. This story indicates that a new Crusoe-based laptop is appearing in China. Does anyone actually own one or an equivalent from some other manufacturer? Could you please post a review? Pros and cons from anyone reading would be appreciated." Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things have changed in the past year. Besides goods from specialty importers like dynamism.com (check out the Bluetooth camera!), the only Transmeta devices widely available in the U.S. seem to be the last few generations of Sony's Picturebook. I'd hoped for a tidal wave of them -- is there any hope of more widespread Crusoe laptop presence? Or are there good sources already?

tripletwentie asks: "Here's an interesting story from ZDnet that talks about the success and the pitfalls of the world adopting broadband, and how regular Joes like us will change the world the way we know it today. Is it really the idea that you can get any piece of music for free that will attract people to buying broadband or maybe the idea of streaming movies straight from your computer to your flat screen tv? Sure, broadband in the house will become a utility like having electricity in the house, but what will get us there? I would love to hear the thoughts and ideas of the programming world." While the article is breathy in anticipation of the promise of broadband, I think its an intersting thing to note that media companies are also in an interesting position, in the fact that certain media companies are already in control of the technology behind broadband itself. Can anyone say "potential conflicts of interest"?

LoadStar writes: "In the never ending war of the DVR's (originally covered by slashdot here (1) and here (2)), TiVo was granted 2 more patents today -- they cover TiVo's 'trick play' features -- 'pause live TV as well as rewind, fast forward, play, play faster, play slower, and play in reverse' -- all the features that make a DVR a DVR. Interestingly enough, TiVo also patented 'a simple and reliable method for connecting TiVo DVRs and other streaming media devices to a network in the home,' a feature that to my knowlege does not currently exist in TiVo products without serious hacking. In related news, SonicBlue announced it would start licensing talks with TiVo, probably believing that the last set of patents granted to them gave them the ammunition necessary to get TiVo to cave and pay a royalty."

With the Fellowship of the Rings just around the corner, the Slashdot Submissions bin is overflowing with stories about the film since it premiered in the UK already for you lucky brits. If you don't mind a little spoilage, here is the guardian's review, the BBC review, the telegraph review, some pictures from the premiere, and one last review. Also, Scifi.com is reporting that the film has already been pirated. The reviews have their nitpicks, but on the whole its looking good. M : LOTR tattoos!

Merry_B.Buck writes: "UCLA's Center for Communication Policy has finished its second annual survey on Internet usage. Some interesting claims: online shoppers believe prices are lower in brick-and-mortar stores, and experienced Interneters are less likely to use chatrooms, play games, and download music than their newbie counterparts. An unrelated report from Forrester Research claims that Internet newcomers tend to gather at LookSmart and MSN portals, while old-timers prefer InfoSpace and Yahoo. [I'm suspicious of both surveys -- neither had a Cowboy Neal option.]"

Merry_B.Buck writes: "UCLA's Center for Communication Policy has finished its second annual survey on Internet usage. Some interesting claims: online shoppers believe prices are lower in brick-and-mortar stores, and experienced Interneters are less likely to use chatrooms, play games, and download music than their newbie counterparts. An unrelated report from Forrester Research claims that Internet newcomers tend to gather at LookSmart and MSN portals, while old-timers prefer InfoSpace and Yahoo. [I'm suspicious of both surveys -- neither had a Cowboy Neal option.]"

apago asks: "I am ripping my large collection of CDs to MP3 one at a time. This takes forever. I would like to know if there is a way I can use my Sony 200 disc jukebox to help automated the ripping process. I can already drive the jukebox thru Sony's S-Link interface using a Nirvis Slink-e device. The juke has SPDIF output. Can I get a sound card with SPDIF input and start ripping thru the digital optical connection? Will this be the same quality as the CDDA data streams?" Now if something like this is possible, it would finally sell me on those multi-CD devices. I too am in the process of sending my CD tracks to MP3 format. It's a fun process, but a little bit of automation couldn't hurt.

imrdkl writes: "Salon is running an feature about the history of the WebRing since Yahoo! bought it last September. The article goes on to give an outlook on Yahoo! itself, including how WebRing has recently been sold to one of the original developers. Webring seemed to me to be a really nice neighborly concept, but it seems at least some of the ringmasters reckon it should die now."

imrdkl writes: "Salon is running an feature about the history of the WebRing since Yahoo! bought it last September. The article goes on to give an outlook on Yahoo! itself, including how WebRing has recently been sold to one of the original developers. Webring seemed to me to be a really nice neighborly concept, but it seems at least some of the ringmasters reckon it should die now."

Thu Anon Coward writes: "Yahoo is reporting that the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has said that WIPO domain disputes can be contested in court. A domain name holder may file a civil action suit in U.S. courts. Apparently we can thank the 'Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act,' signed by former President Clinton."

zebziggle writes "The dashPC has Global Positioning (GPS) and Navigation, DVDs, Games (Quake 3, SoF, UT), Address book database, etc. It can run any programs that will run on an Intel/AMD i686 class computer. There is a Basic Stamp micro-controller that interfaces the Linux box to the car ignition for controlled boot/shutdown." The article says Linux, but that screenshot tells a different story. The website has other stuff and a lot more pictures.

dinotrac writes "A just-completed 23 month study, carried out over the course of a Martian year, found that the Martian polar ice caps are rapidly eroding, sending large amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the Martian atmosphere. If this pattern continues over time, Mars could go from a planet whose winters are cold enough for dry-ice snow to having a shirt sleeve atmosphere. Humans would still have to provide for oxygen, but plants could go naked. I wonder if this means tougher emission controls on the next Martian rover?"

WinkyN writes: "A story on Yahoo! is claiming Apple might release a flat-panel iMac for release in early 2002. Analysts for Morgan Stanley who cover Apple say the computer manufacturer has placed orders for component parts to build such a machine (in fact, build about 100,000 of them a month). Perhaps Steve Jobs will announce this at Macworld Expo in January?"

Slashback tonight with updates on SSH vulnerabilities, the Queen's web server, the European answer to GPS (in danger, it seems) and your ever-thinner rights to use software for anything you don't have specific permission for.

Sometimes being British means self-flagellation. Ferox writes: "The November Web Site Survey from Netcraft reveals something interesting: 'Two years ago the Queen of England became an unlikely icon for the Linux revolution when her webmaster replaced Solaris as the platform for the Royal Family's site, citing the better price/performance of the Dell/Linux platform over the previous incumbent, Sun/Solaris. The open source community celebrated and speculated on when the Apache web server might receive the "By Royal Appointment" moniker. This week the site has changed platforms again, this time to Microsoft-IIS.'"

Keep your hands and passwords inside the car at all times. Niels Provos passed along word of his ongoing research into network security, with some slightly depressing news about the state of Internet security.

Even though the CRC32 bug has been found over a year ago, over 30% of all servers are still vulnerable today. Graph at http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos/ssh/crc32.png.

In February 2001, Razor Bindview released their "Remote vulnerability in SSH daemon crc32 compensation attack detector" advisory, which outlined a gaping hole in deployed SSH servers that can lead to a remote attacker gaining privileged access.

In November 2001, Dave Dittrich published a detailed analysis of the "CRC32 compensation attack detector exploit." This exploit is currently widely in use. CERT released Incident Note IN-2001-12.

At the Center for Information Technology Integration, Niels Provos and Peter Honeyman have been scanning the University of Michigan for vulnerable SSH server software to identify and update vulnerable SSH servers. However, scans of the Internet show that system and security administrators must react and update their SSH servers. At this writing, over 30% of all SSH servers appear to have the CRC32 bug.

A simple solution is to remove support for Version One of the SSH protocol. The majority of servers on the Internet support the SSH v2 protocol. To test whether your network has vulnerable SSH servers, you might use the ScanSSH tool.

References: "ScanSSH - Scanning the Internet for SSH Servers", Niels Provos and Peter Honeyman, 16th USENIX Systems Administration Conference (LISA). San Diego, CA, December 2001. This information is also available at http://www.citi.umich.edu/u/provos/ssh/

Don't play with your food, or your games. janolder writes "In the matter of the Civilization III translation project (articles on slashdot, apolyton and heise), the fans have gotten the short end of the stick. The project web site (translation.civ3.de) has been down for a while. Earlier this week, both the web site operator and Kai Fiebach, the project leader, signed Infogrames' cease and desists out of fear of further legal action. The legal position (not to mention the moral postion) of the fans did not appear to be too weak - EULA's are not binding in Germany and supplying patches to a program is certainly not the same as translating a book and distributing the translated manuscript.

Infogrames Germany has issued another press release (translation and my comments) justifying their legal action and position. It makes for an interesting peek into the mindset of a game publisher.

The good news is that Infogrames is considering a more timely release of Civilzation III in Germany.

The bad news is that the cease and desists apparently forbid any modification of Civ3 in any way, shape or form. So no more custom maps for your friends, custom rules or any such copyright infringing activity, please! Is it just me, or has the world suddenly become a less interesting place?"

Not as if Americans always know where we are, either. ByTor-2112 writes "Hate to be the bearer of bad news so soon after a story is posted, but as I commented on the previous story, it appears that galileo has some funding issues. Honestly, did anyone really expect the EU to go through with it? It took them long enough to agree on a common currency!"

Justin Rossi writes: "EE Times has an article about Nancy, 'the lightest video codec' which is taking Asia by storm and finally bringing streaming Video to handheld devices. What I wonder is how it shall fare against MPEG-4, Ogg Tarkin, and MC-10."

Justin Rossi writes: "EE Times has an article about Nancy, 'the lightest video codec' which is taking Asia by storm and finally bringing streaming Video to handheld devices. What I wonder is how it shall fare against MPEG-4, Ogg Tarkin, and MC-10."

FortKnox writes "Italian archaeologists that were selling rights to build an underground parking lot, north of Pompeii, have discovered an ancient village within it. This discovery is a village that is basically a snapshot of the bronze age. The city, which is north of Vesuvius, was given the name "Nola". One odd thing, though, unlike Pompeii, they haven't found bodies in Nola. Good stuff to find, and a good place to compare theory with proof."

waveclaw asks: "A Catch-22: how to initially draw people to a community when the a community itself is the selling point and your being drowned in information sea that the web has become? Many people take the popularity of Slashdot and other 'people concentrators' for granted. Whole communities are developing, as they have done for thousands of years, on web logs and news sites via reader feedback. Unfortunately, not all sites are well traveled. (Side note: a lot of reseach has apperantly gone into this.) For instance, the special interst publication Dragon Spirit Magazine is closing their doors due to a lack rather than surfiet of viewers. Belfy Comics lists an entire section of online-only comics which are (for lack of a better term) abandoned by both viewer and creator. Porbably the most powerful force obliterating free communication is neither fundamentalist nor jack-booted: it's obscurity."

"While network outages are easy to diagnose by comparison, what does a site do when it's dying? Sites like Keenspace and Webring and wiki try to build self-referential collections of sites and pages that sometimes work and sometimes don't Has anyone out had their back to this wall a lot and come out winning? Short of a listing on Slashdot, how?"

Dave (picked at random) and 8000 other slashdot readers wrote in to tell us that they too had been overcome by the relentless hype machine that is IT, Ginger, Segway, whatever. Read about IT in your favorite hype-dispensing media outlet, each of which thinks that it has an exclusive on the story of IT. Flash diagram of IT. Time. NY Times. Reuters. And don't forget to watch the advertisement, errr, "demonstration" of IT on Good Morning Consumers tomorrow. Update: 12/03 13:37 GMT by T : Segway's webmaster John Grohol points out the segway website as well.

11thangel writes: "Dotcomscoop is reporting that Excite@home has released a statement saying that they have discontinued service to AT&T, as it's certain negotiations will be fruitless. All others are still at the bargaining table. Earlier statements indicated that an example would be made out of one provider, AT&T being the obvious target. Everyone else keep your fingers crossed." There's a Reuters story about AT&T being unplugged. Various submissions have noted that some people who still have connectivity have lost their DNS servers. Just add "64.28.67.150 slashdot.org" to your hosts file and you should be good to go. :)

PyroMosh writes: "Well, NASA scrubbed yesterday's launch of STS-108 after the Russians broke the space station. It's been rescheduled for tonight 7:18 PM EST (0018 GMT). As was noted in yesterday's story, there will be all kinds of frightening new security in place to assure the saftey of Endeavour, her crew, and her mission in these troubled times."

PyroMosh writes: "Well, NASA is scheduled to launch STS-108 today at 7:41 PM EST (0041 GMT). This will be the first shuttle launch following the events of September 11. As such, security is tighter than ever. There will be no public / press farewell to the astronauts as they leave for the pad. The FAA has NOTAMs covering the new airspace restrictions around Cape Canaveral. CNN is reporting that the Air Force has fighters flying Combat Air Patrol and roads and waterways on the surface will be tightly restricted. Also, Endeavour will be carrying nearly 6000 flags, which will be given to families of 9/11 victims, and organizations that helped in the aftermath. It's such a shame. I just moved to FL, and I've never seen a launch. I've seen two landings, including Endeavour's maiden voyage, so I was looking forward to this. I was in NJ on 9/11 and it hit close to home, now it's like the terrorists have taken one more thing from us. I may not be as close as I'd like to be (read: onboard), but I'll be watching anyway. Good luck, Endeavour."

Don Symes asks: "In ripping my CD library (MP3c -> cdparanoia -> bladeenc), I've run across a couple of CDs that, when played as MP3s, produce a white noise "fet-fet-fet-fet" at about 2 to 3 pulses a second. The CDs in question are Ani DiFranco, _Ani DiFranco_, Righteous Babe Records, 1989; and Israel Philharmonic, _60th Anniversary Gala_, RCA, 1996. Are these early examples of copy protected CDs, or an encoding artifact/settings issue?" Has anyone else found rip-proof CDs in there collection that exhibit this behavior? Has anyone successfully ripped any of the problem CDs listed, either here or in the comments (if so, what did you have to do)?

cayle clark asks: "In April I will be on a tour that spends 5 days in Tokyo, and on one of these days I hope to break away from the planned cultural events for a visit to the Akihabara, the world-famous electronics market district, partly just to gawk, partly in hope of finding a deal on a really whizzy mini-notebook or handheld pc. But... can a gaijin ^? who doesn't speak or read Japanese get around in this place? Would anyone who's been there comment on prices, selection, or experience with the many duty-free shops?"

destructor writes: "It looks as though robots can answer the questions of life and capitalism through robotic soccer simulations. I found this article over at megarad.com that tells us about Dr. Balch's experiments with soccer robots [NYT, free reg, blah blah]. For now, it is purely a computer simulation, but I guess it will be turned into a physical environment rather soon." Additionally Shabazz writes: "The SF Weekly has a story about a band called 'Captured! by Robots' that started by Jay Vance (who some may recognize from Skankin' Pickle) and several robots that he created. The band is a bit out there, but something that any true geek can appreciate. Maybe this is the start of something great!" Additionally Phred noted that the Oregon Robotics Tournament being held this Saturday (December 1).

gilgsn writes: "From Yahoo News: Boeing is working with a light airplane manufacturer in Spain on a fuel cell powered plane. The efficiency of electric motors, with their reliability, acceleration, lack of vibrations and noise has a lot to offer to general aviation. The project aims at exploring environmentally friendly modes of propulsion. I can easily imagine a hybrid aircraft using fuel cell technology for take-off and altitude gain, coupled with solar cells to sustain flight. I hope a kitplane manufacturer in the United States will read this. I can't wait to fly a fuel cell powered ultralight!" CD: The question is can a fuel cell deliver enough energy for a flight long enough to be practical.

Anonymous Coward writes "TheOregonian.com is reporting that an identity theft ring was caught with ownership of a set of CD's which contained records on every registered driver (~2.5 million people) in the State of Oregon. With all the calls for identity smart cards, federal databases, and better connections among existing state databases, this story should provide a real warning for the abuse such systems invite...by both criminals and the government itself...the records are actually for sale to 'approved' companies like news organizations and banks. The full story can be read here on yahoo as well."

b-side.org writes "Yahoo! News has a story on yon giant hubble mirrorscope thingy locating an alien, mostly sodium, atmosphere. X10.com popunder ads also included free of charge." Mm....let's mix that atmosphere with water. T cuts in: This turns out to be the major discovery hinted at a few days ago.

gnudot writes: "Red Hat announced this morning that they have entered into an agreement with IBM to provide support services for the entire eServer product line. This includes zSeries, iSeries pSeries in addition to the xSeries (What no qSeries? or 7Series?) which is already supported. Here is the story on Yahoo."

The Night Watchman writes "This article on Yahoo News outlines the latest plans in the works for a handful of private companies to begin lunar mining missions within the next 10 years."

The Night Watchman writes "This article on Yahoo News outlines the latest plans in the works for a handful of private companies to begin lunar mining missions within the next 10 years."

The Night Watchman writes "This article on Yahoo News outlines the latest plans in the works for a handful of private companies to begin lunar mining missions within the next 10 years."

ElectusUnum writes "Well, it's been a little while since the XBox was released and people are already playing online! The folks at xboxgw.com have written a program to create an ethernet bridge between xbox's over the net, fooling the xbox's into thinking they're on a LAN. 1v1 seems to create no major lag and reports have come in like this one that claim up to four xbox's work fine. It seems a DSL connection is preferred for hosting the server." I want an X-Box so bad, or as I would call it, a DOA3-Box.

Bill Kendrick writes: "Thanksgiving was a great day for Linux PDA gaming. Not one, but two classic id games were ported to not one, but two different Linux PDAs! Quake (screenshots) is available for the Sharp Zaurus and the original Wolf3D is out for the Agenda VR3. Now if only they could do Unreal Tournament over IR ports..."

madvenu asks: "How do the other geeks and managers(!) over here handle failures and depression? Especially with the current troubled climate... this question seems very relevant and apt. We are, after all, only human." This is the real, human side of this business. When you suffer a setback, you have to psych yourself up to tackle the next one, no matter what. How do YOU pick yourself up after a particularly bad day/week/month at the high-stress office?

"Recently, a friend and fellow Unix Sys Admin called up and told me she was feeling low and useless as she had not been able to successfully setup a Volume Manager on Solaris / Fiber GBIC /A5200 / Vertias via remote install !! She has 3 years of experience on various Unix systems and is good with sendmail, backups and the usual admin stuff, but this is the first time with Veritas & remote solaris installs for her. She has been trying for a couple of weeks and some snag or the other, together with all the incompatible 'patches' which crash the machine are making her tensed and sleepless. The typical late into the nights and early morning 2am installs and crashes and reinstalls and patching are also affecting her health and joy of life. Now, she is loosing confidence in herself and is beginning to doubt her own capabilities.
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This is the same experience I have gone through before, but it was installations of OpenBSD or getting that particular hardware to work with Linux or trying to understand Emacs... that I would tire of late into the nights and start getting depressed as I would not find solutions and would wonder if I was good enough to do anything at all if I could not solve such "simple" things.I have found this syndrome occurs to me once in a while and I have not found any one solution. Usually I take time off and take things easy and tell myself that failing is not so bad after all....

So how do the slashdotters feel about this? Any tips from those great sysadmins and programmers who have built Linux and other opensource projects? What makes them keep going inspite of failures and depression? How do you do it?"

Screaming Lunatic writes "Woohoo, Return to Castle Wolfenstein has finally shipped. Check this story out at Yahoo. You should be able to buy it at the regular gaming shops. I highly recommend buying it rather than hacking it, as noted in Graeme Devines .plan file." CD: I am seriously flashing back to the Apple II game with a similar name, hope this doesn't suck like daikatana.

Archangel Michael writes "Israeli scientists have built a DNA computer so tiny that a trillion of them could fit in a test tube and perform a billion operations per second with 99.8 percent accuracy. Yahoo News has the story"

texchanchan writes: "Yahoo reports that "Interior ministers and law enforcement officials from Europe, South Africa, Canada, the United States and Japan will sign the milestone cyber-crime convention.... [because] computer criminals... have moved on from ``innocent'' hacking to fraud, embezzlement and life-threatening felonies."" Feel the spin in that article, from the anonymous "official". We've posted about this treaty before; read the final draft and note it well, particularly the extradition provisions, mutual assistance (some other country gets your country to tap your phones, and send them the data) and the requirements to disclose passwords.

quakeaddict writes: "The US Dept of Education released the Nations Report Card for Science. Compared to 1996, it seems as if we as a nation are doing worse.The site also has cool tools to see how various states performed in other subjects.. There is also a very cool interactive tool that provides a wealth of information about how well kids did in all the subjects crossed with all sorts of questions (e.g. What was Johnnys score if he says he watched 1, 2 or 3 hours of TV a day etc...)."

thonot asks: "I build PC's from my home, generally for frinds and friends of friends. Yesterday though, my wife's boss called me and asked if I could build him a bussiness PC. The only problem is that he wants a RAID0 configuration w/ 3 Seagate Cheetah 18.4 Gig 15k RPM SCSI drives, and I've never even seen a RAID controller, well except in pictures. Can anyone point me in the direction of a good controller card?"

The news from MSNBC is that Microsoft wants to, er, settle for the children. Take that whichever way you want. They propose to settle civil anti-trust cases (not the DoJ suit) with a $1.1 billion (retail value) spanking (they have $36 billion in the bank), consisting of free computer goodies to our nation's poorest schools (the first hit's free, kids). I'm sure Microsoft will upgrade those old computers to keep them current, in perpetuity, for free, out of the kindness of their hearts, but in an apparent oversight that was left out of the news report. Of that $1.1 billion, $0.9 billion will be software presumably valued at whatever Microsoft wants to charge (see "monopoly"). For hardware and (laughable) training/support costs, Microsoft will be docked three weeks' worth of interest on their cashpile; they will seek matching funds for the remainder, I am not making this up. Some lawyers opposed this but "concluded that Microsoft's monopoly already is so pervasive that students would have to learn to use these products anyway in the workplace." Update: 11/20 21:22 GMT by M : Heh. Red Hat offers an alternative to Microsoft's settlement proposal - you provide hardware, we'll provide software.

adamjone writes: "C|NET and Yahoo! are running a story about the hit that open source software is taking during this economic slump. Open source development is a hobby for me, not my full-time job. I find that I have more time to work on my project during times when my full-time job is slow, or we don't have enough work. Is open source truly being driven by those who make it their full-time occupation? If so, is there a happy medium for keeping bread on the table and still working within the open source community?" At least Microsoft is doing well.

adamjone writes: "C|NET and Yahoo! are running a story about the hit that open source software is taking during this economic slump. Open source development is a hobby for me, not my full-time job. I find that I have more time to work on my project during times when my full-time job is slow, or we don't have enough work. Is open source truly being driven by those who make it their full-time occupation? If so, is there a happy medium for keeping bread on the table and still working within the open source community?" At least Microsoft is doing well.

zavyman writes: "I just noticed at Cryptome that the flaws in HDCP posted to Slashdot earlier this year, which one person refused to disclose due to possible threats from the DMCA, have been made public by different authors. Scott Crosby of Carnegie Mellon University, Ian Goldberg of Zero Knowledge Systems, and Robert Johnson, Dawn Song, and David Wagner of UC Berkeley have published a formal cryptanalysis of the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection System that proves its fatal flaws. Interesting reading for those with some background with cryptanalysis."

Nevyan sends in a link about a substantial iceberg breaking free of the Antarctic ice.

wavecentral writes "IEEE just approved the 802.11g as the new standard in a vote late Thursday. This enables data transfer rates of up to 54 megabits per sec and works on the 2.4 gigahertz band that 802.11b uses. This in turn makes it compatable and operable between the offical standard." Ewann also writes: "By mid-2002 we should be seeing products based on this technology. Unlike 5 GHz 802.11a, 802.11g is backwards compatible with the huge installed base of 802.11b products. Cool stuff if you want to wirelessly stream video and music in your home. More info on 0211-planet."

Lysander Luddite writes: "More CG actors, this time of Bruce Lee in a film tentatively titled "Dragon Warrior" by Korean filmmaker Chul Shin. Wired has the details. Compare to an older Wired article when this type of thing was just beginning." There's a Reuters article too.

jutus writes: "I recently relocated for work from Canada to Florida, and on a suggestion, shipped my equipment (well-packed), with UPS Ground. I've posted some images of the destruction my shipment was subjected to by UPS. UPS Ground does not insure international shipments, so basically I'm up shit creek, no paddle. They have been giving me the textbook run-around for the past week. UPS Canada blames UPS in the U.S., and you can imagine who UPS down here in the States blames. As of yet, UPS has not even attempted to negotiate any compensation for my loss due to their severe negligence ... For Gods sake, use FedEX." My luck has gone the other direction -- I've mostly had good luck with UPS and some misdeliveries with FedEx. Would be nice to hear from any UPS employees reading this about what could have led to the damage jutus illustrates.

srand writes "So some scientists at HP developed this AI to mix new music tracks for dancers based on biofeedback from the clubbers. The clubbers are each given a heart monitor, which sends information to the DJ through a wireless link. The DJ itself mixes music using genetic algorithms to find the tracks the audience likes best. The tracks are the "genes", and feedback from the audience determines the fitness levels of the genes." I still think generative music has a lot of potential, although I'd love an intermediate step where some sort of biofeedback picked MP3s based on your mood.