Slashdot Mirror

DJ BenBen writes to tell us that they Army is currently testing some 500 liquid cooled vests with Humvee crews in Iraq. From the article: "The Humvees with add-on armor were fitted with air conditioners after TARDEC engineers in Warren, Mich., were given the requirement to figure out how Soldiers in armored vehicles could be kept cool under the desert sun. Some of the same engineers had designed the add-on armor kits for the M-998 and M-1025 Humvees in theater. But with the extra armor and doors closed, temperatures inside the vehicles could reportedly reach more than 130 degrees. 'It's like putting somebody in a toaster oven on low heat,' said Charlie Bussee, an engineer at TARDEC."

As a follow-up to the announcement that Jamdat was being purchased by powerhouse Electronic Arts, Gamespot has the news that a Jamdat investor is suing to stop the business deal. From the article: "While Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter said EA 'bought Jamdat for a fair price if they intend to get big,' some questioned the premium paid to become an instant player in the growing mobile market. Piper Jaffray's Anthony Gikas said the $680 million figure was actually $200 million too high. Even so, Gikas favored EA's purchase in a note to investors, telling them, 'don't sweat the small stuff.'"

The official Bungie site is running an article entitled The Making of SlugFest, the story of how a Spartan ended up in Dead or Alive 4. From the article: "Initially, team Ninja wanted, and asked very politely, for Master Chief. Well, we balked at that. Master Chief is busy, fictionally speaking. We left him at the end of Halo 2, involved in a very large scale galactic conflict with world-ending repercussions. Fictionally speaking, he just wasn't available for fisticuffs. But we loved the idea of seeing a Spartan fight, unarmed. You have to figure they'd be pretty serious pugilistic contenders right? Half ton of bio-mechanically enhanced armor-clad uber-trained soldiering nightmare? Has to have at least a decent right hook."

caffeinemessiah writes "The New York Times has a story on how chimpanzees seem to exhibit a better understanding of cause and effect than human children. While training chimps to perform a routine task with redundant steps, the chimps were able to figure out and eliminate the redundant steps, while the human children routinely performed them despite their evident uselessness. It says something about the way we learn compared to chimps and should be interesting to cognitive scientists and those interested in computational learning theory, at the least."

Brian Young writes "Nasa is looking for private companies to take over the business of transporting astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. "'Certainly this is an opportunity for the new space companies,' said Jim Banke, head of Florida operations for The Space Foundation industry trade association. 'They've been lobbying NASA hard for something like this for years.' NASA hopes to supplement, and eventually replace, crew and cargo flights to the space station that had been planned for the shuttle fleet." One has to wonder how much money can be saved by NASA that can be put to use elsewhere, such as trying to figure out how to put together a manned mission to Mars, if they no longer have to dish out the tremendous amount of money that getting astronauts and cargo to the ISS requires."

An anonymous reader writes "This step-by-step guide shows you have to find the perfect gift for your gamer, even if you don't know anything about gaming yourself." From the article: "Trying to figure out which games are sure-fire hits and safe bets for the gamer in your life is never an easy task. Tastes range from the light and fluffy to the dark and deadly, and there are games for almost every type, style, and preference. There's no better way to come across as being on top of the game than to give just the right title, just as there's no faster way to cast yourself as clueless by dispensing copies of the GameCube's Charlie's Angles."

Despite the launch of the first next-gen console, winter sales figures have been lower than hoped-for. From the article: "The two lowered their projected earnings numbers for Electronic Arts and Activision in both the short and long term today, but said both companies remained attractive in long-term investments. They reduced their Electronic Arts sales projections for the December quarter from $1.52 billion to $1.45 billion, and likewise lowered the associated earnings per-share estimate from $1.29 to $1.20. In the long term, the company reduced its peak earnings per-share estimate from $3.50 to $3.20 in fiscal year 2010."

Gamasutra reports that a study shows what we all already knew: high game scores do not equate to high sales figures. From the article: "The study ... attempts to find correlations under more specific scenarios, such as with blockbuster games in the Madden, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo series; within the same franchise, and within the most specific example, within sports games concerning the same sport. However, as the authors state in their conclusion: 'After going through multiple scenarios, we believe a game rating, in most cases, is not a reliable tool for predicting game sales.'"

0110011001110101 writes "A crazy new product out of Taiwan seems to be aimed at the feed dependent of us out there. The 'rsstroom reader' is a bathroom gadget that prints news feeds onto your T-P - that's right, your TOILET PAPER! The best part is the "biometrics" toilet seat that'll figure out who you are based on your weight and prints the news you want - not your roommates tabloid garbage. Going to the rsstroom will never be boring again! Heres a close-up image of this new gadget."

An anonymous reader writes "From the shrinking Arctic sea ice to retreating glaciers and collapsing Antarctic ice shelves, the cryosphere is an important and ongoing news story. NASA satellites captured these snow and ice changes worldwide to help scientists figure out what is happening. A unique global view of all of these scientific issues is presented in a new NASA video, which is being released at this meeting. The video tour takes you around the world to see what is happening through state-of-the-art animations of the latest satellite data. NASA scientist Waleed Abdalati and television producer Michael Starobin will answer questions about new cryosphere research and how the visualizations can be used to illustrate the science."

Phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Apple has added eleven new and classic television shows from NBC, the Sci-Fi network, and USA. The new shows include Alfred Hitchcock, Battlestar Galactica, Monk, Surface, Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, Dragnet, Law & Order, The Office and most importantly: Knight Rider!" From the article: "Steve Jobs took the opportunity to toot Apple's horn, stating that since the inception of video downloads on the iTMS, they'd sold nearly three million individual items. In addition to the sales figures, the PR from Apple stated that their current offering of video stands at approximately 300 episodes. All in all this looks like a slam dunk for Apple as they're rounding up their distribution deals and diversifying their suppliers. If the rumored deals with FOX and CBS are true then Apple will have a dominating lead in this market, much like their current domination in the digital music distribution arena."

frdmfghtr writes "ZDNet.com is running a story about a runaway idea of a tracking automobiles via GPS. Not to be confused with the Canadian project geared towards anti-speeding ideas, this one does in fact have the goal of tracking your vehicle. 'The U.S. Department of Transportation has been handing millions of dollars to state governments for GPS-tracking pilot projects designed to track vehicles wherever they go. So far, Washington state and Oregon have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these 'mileage-based road user fees.' However, the article goes on to talk about how there is no provision in place to prevent the uncontrolled surveillance of motorists without a court order."

DevanJedi writes "Forbes has created a list of 15 wealthy fictional characters with hilarious biographies describing the sources of their riches. Lex Luthor, C. Montgomery Burns and Bruce Wayne figure in the list, among others. J.R. Ewing was dropped from the list this year after 'Ewing Oil filed for bankruptcy in the wake of massive accounting scandal.'"

One of the BBC's 'At-A-Glance' features talks about the realities of gaming in Britain, and it has some encouraging statistics for the industry's continued health. "The detailed project, called State of Play, profiled UK gamers and non-gamers from 6 to 65 and found that almost 60% played games. Of those, 48% are women and 100% of 6 to 10-year-olds play games ... The average age of the UK gamer is 28, perhaps much higher that one might expect. Unsurprisingly, those born in the 90s do not know life without games. Perhaps more unexpectedly, 51% of the 36 to 50s play games, and the figures are still rising. "

I've spent seven years working as a writer and editor for Slashdot's parent company. During this time I've been to at least a dozen mainstream journalists' and editors' conferences where the most-asked question was, "How do we adapt to the Internet?" You'd think, with all the smart people working for newspapers, that by now most of them would have figured out how to use the Internet effectively enough that it would produce a significant percentage of their profits. But they haven't. In this essay I will tell you why they've failed to adapt, and what they must do if they want to survive in a world where the Internet dominates the news business. I'm going to use the Bradenton Herald as an example, not because it's a bad newspaper but because I live in the middle of its circulation area. The Herald is a typical Knight Ridder small-city newspaper in every way except one: it serves Manatee County, an area with a fast-growing population where most new residents are old enough that they grew up reading newspapers every day. Despite these favorable factors, the Herald's circulation has declined by 3.5% in the last year. Of course, newspaper circulation declines are now normal rather than exceptional. Other newspapers have done far worse, with the San Francisco Chronicle recording a 16.4% drop in the last six months alone.

Readership vs. Circulation

Much of the Chron's circulation decrease was because it stopped giving away free papers. The Boston Globe also stopped a giveaway program and suffered a circulation decline as a result, although only about half as big a loss as the Chron's, but the Globe's marketing people have said that only half of the loss came from stopping the giveaways, and blamed the rest of it on the usual suspects, notably TV and the Internet.

These figures only measure paper newspaper circulation. They don't include Web readership, which generally seems to be trending (slowly) upwards on newspaper Web sites. Circulation figures can also be misleading because they only measure the total number of newspapers distributed, not the kind of people who read them. And readership quality can often be more important, in a business sense, than quantity. This is especially true for those newspapers (namely, just about all of them) that rely on advertising for the bulk of their income.

By definition, anyone who reads a newspaper online at home can afford a computer and an Internet connection, which means they aren't at the very bottom of the economic pile. Online readers are also likely to be more open to new experiences, products, and services than those who don't feel they need to use the Internet -- which by some estimates may be as many as half of all households within the Herald's circulation area, which has a higher percentage of retirees than all but a few other U.S. counties.

Journalism professor Douglas Fisher and media executive Alan Mutter have both talked about intentional circulation losses on their blogs. In his post, Fisher says, "The industry evolves to the point of small, expensive print publications and most of the 'mass' news on the Web somehow. Then, as we evolve toward paid content online will come issues such as whether a certain amount of 'base' information should be free for every person -- sort of like a public utility of information (perhaps presented as a social utility necessary in a functioning democratic society)."

Meanwhile, when newspapers talk about readership vs. circulation, they're typically trying to estimate how many people read each copy of their print product (pdf download) rather than come up with a total picture of their publication's readership, including its online presence. This is a mistake. Instead of treating their Web sites like unwelcome stepchildren, newspapers should turn them into their primary method of news delivery -- and teach their reporters, editors, and ad sales people how to work effectively with this new -- to them -- medium.

Slashdot Lessons

1. No matter how much I or any other reporter or editor may know about a subject, some of the readers know more. What's more, if you give those readers an easy way to contribute their knowledge to a story, they will.

Imagine a newspaper with a space for comments below each story on its Web site. This Slashdot story has comments directly attached to it, not tucked away from public view the way the Bradenton Herald's site hides reader comments on Bulletin Boards that aren't directly connected to any of the paper's articles or editorials. To make matters worse, the Herald's Bulletin Boards require a separate login to post. Even if you're a logged-in reader you must put in your username and password again to use them.

As a result of these posting barriers, you hardly see any reader comments on the Herald's site, and what few there are seem to come from a small group that posts over and over. Even the Herald's single (hard to find) blog, maintained by token hip-dude entertainment reporter Wade Tatangelo, draws so few daily comments that you could count them on the fingers of one hand -- and usually have four or five fingers left over.

By contrast, the Washington Post's Web site has two blogs, Achenblog and The Debate, prominently displayed on the Opinions page that almost always draw 100+ comments per post.

A truly Web-hip newspaper would not only allow but encourage reader comments on all of its stories, not just on a blog or two. With thousands of readers as fact-checkers, mistakes would rarely go uncorrected for long, and if there was any perceived bias in a controversial article, reader comments would make sure the other side got heard. Even better, a reader who witnessed an event the paper covered would be able to add his or her account of it to the reporter's, which would give other readers a richer and deeper view of it.

2. Not all readers know what they're talking about.

While some readers know more about any given topic than a professional journalist writing about it, most don't. Some, indeed, post anything about anything, including misleading or false information. This is why Slashdot has a moderation system, and why all newspaper Web sites need to have moderation systems in place before they allow reader posts attached directly to stories. Slashdot's, which is built into the code that runs the whole site, is probably too complicated for most newspapers, but everyone (including newspaper publishers) is free to download, use, and modify it. For those who don't want to use the code behind Slashdot, there are many other free (and proprietary) content management programs available that have similar -- and often simpler and less geeky -- moderation features built into them.

3. No matter what you do, some readers will post malicious and/or obscene comments

Slashdot removes posts only in response to Cease and Desist orders or legitimate copyright infringement complaints. We find that malicious or obscene posts are usually moderated into oblivion almost immediately, because our readers -- hundreds of whom have moderation power at any given moment -- have a sharp eye for stupid stuff.

A mainstream newspaper might choose to remove blatantly disgusting posts, which would take some staff time. There would also -- inevitably -- be second-guessing and complaints, including whines from readers who believed their posts were removed because they didn't follow the [fill in political party here] line, not because they used offensive language.

Moderation never makes everyone happy. Someone will always feel the rules are too loose, while someone else will believe they're too tight. And moderates -- I mean moderators -- will always get flak from ____-wingers who think they're biased. But these problems shouldn't stop grown-up newspaper people from soliciting and publishing readers' posts. They should already be accustomed to bias accusations.

4. What if readers post comments that advertisers don't like?

This is a problem, and one to which some newspapers are extremely sensitive --not just over readers' comments but sometimes over their own reporters' stories. A 1999 Washington Monthly article had some examples of how newspapers sometimes cater to advertisers instead of their readers. Allowing readers to comment on stories, and allowing them to post anything they want (other than obscenities, blatant hate speech, and personal attacks) increases readers' faith in the newspaper, which makes it a more effective advertising medium in the long run because some of that trust will rub off on advertisers that support it.

The Business Side of a Newspaper Web Site

Slashdot, like almost all other Web, broadcast, and print media outlets, depends on ad revenue for most of its income. For the first few years of its existence as a commercial entity, major advertisers were afraid to buy ads on Slashdot or other free-wheeling, community-driven sites. They worried that every time they touted a product, all the customers they'd ever irritated would post bad things about them. It's impossible to run a company of any scale without having at least a few dissatisfied customers, no matter how good your products and services are, so this was not an unjustified fear.

Luckily for Slashdot (and our parent company), many companies have learned that they are going to get criticized online whether they like it or not, so at the very worst, running ads on pages where they get slammed gives them a chance to tell their side of the story.

Keyword-based ad placement helps them do this. Imagine making software that's often knocked for its security vulnerabilities, while competing software is available that costs little or nothing and doesn't share your product's problems. You'd want to run a Get the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) campaign on every Web page where the competing product was being discussed so that you could tell people who are (obviously) interested in the competing product how awful it is, and why they should buy yours instead.

On a local newspaper Web site, a developer intent on replacing pristine wilderness along a scenic river with ugly condominium towers in the face of opposition from local citizens' groups could run a keyword-targeted campaign explaining why their buildings would be better than a swampy, mosquito-ridden riverfront. They could stress the fact that they would reduce the population of turtles, spiders, alligators, shore birds, frogs, and other annoying wildlife, and that runoff from their chemically-fertilized landscaping would help keep local fish populations down by contributing to red tide, thereby reducing the number of smelly fishermen infesting the area.

Other, more sensible, businesses would use the same tactic -- keyword ad placement -- to sponsor discussions in a positive way. An obvious example here in Florida would be resort property owners linking ads to tourism-related stories and the discussions attached to them. With geotargeting becoming common on the Web, ads aimed at visitors could be visible to all of a Florida newspaper's online readers, while ads for a local business would only be shown to local residents -- unless the local advertiser was canny enough to realize that Florida has many thousands of seasonal residents, and that reaching these snowbirds through the local newspaper's Web site before they come South is a great way to get a leg up on competitors.

Some other ways to exploit the Web that newspapers don't seem to do well:

• Print-them-yourself coupons. This is lots cheaper than putting coupons in a print newspaper. Many newspapers boast that today's paper contains $___ worth of coupon savings. Why don't more papers make this boast about their online editions? TV stations could do this on their sites, too. This would be an entirely new source of revenue for them, since there is no way to put a coupon in a TV spot.
• Online ad circulars, similar to the paper ones that pack print newspapers on Sundays and holidays. The print ones are expensive to produce and deliver, especially in color. Online circulars would be far less costly.
• Selling sponsorships for community calendars and other "public interest" sections that should be on every newspaper's Web site -- but often aren't or are produced in too scattered a manner to be useful for readers. C'mon, newspaper (and local TV) people! A well-organized, database-driven events calendar is easy to produce. If you don't have one (and sponsors for it), you should.
• Sponsored, "free to individuals and small businesses," local classifieds. craigslist and eBay are busily taking the classified ad market away from newspapers, with Google getting ready to help them with this effort. The Poynter Institute's Steve Outing suggests that the best way to beat back this threat is to "Turn newspaper classifieds into an active and interactive community, instead of just static, dull listings. A cold-hearted newspaper classifieds database could well be smothered by Google classifieds. A local-focused interactive community may be less vulnerable."

The Local-Focused Interactive Community

I believe the future of not only classified ads but of local news gathering and distribution is the "local-focused interactive community." According to this article, craigslist founder Craig Newmark agrees with me. So do plenty of other Web entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who are busily building and financing "community" sites.

Local newspapers should have dominated all of this interactivity from the beginning. They had the name recognition and -- through their print editions -- the promotional muscle to make their Web sites into unassailable community hubs. But they didn't, and now they're reduced to playing catch-up.

If the Sarasota Herald-Tribune had followed through on its plans to incorporate reader-written blogs into its site, Suncoastblog.com probably wouldn't exist. This group blog is an admittedly lame effort, barely begun, put together by several people in this area (including me) who thought it would be nice to have a local site that might eventually cover events and places that don't make their way into the local papers. We know the Herald-Tribune, whose circulation area overlaps the Bradenton Herald's, had thought about hosting reader blogs at one point, because they asked readers to submit blog ideas several months ago. I submitted one and never heard back.

I also submitted a local computer business column concept to the Herald. I came up with it because the Herald has a Sunday business page it calls "Digital Manatee," on which I have never seen anything other than out-of-town wire service material even though there is more than enough local computer and Internet business activity to fill a weekly column, and enough local computer and computer service vendors to surround that column with profitable advertising.

The Herald's editor didn't respond to my proposal. I've written three computer-oriented books, and thousands of articles that have run online and in print all over the world, but I am apparently not worth even a polite turndown from my local paper's editor. No problem. A week later I was having lunch with a couple of local entrepreneur buddies. I told them what had happened. They suggested an online computer business magazine instead of a Herald column, and offered to finance it on the spot, out of their pockets.

I don't have time to start a new publication. But I am in a position to help someone else start one, and to write a story or two for it now and then. Financing's in place. So is a domain name. So at some point the Herald and Herald-Tribune may have (yet) another niche publication competing with them. It won't be a big competitor, but its ad revenue will come from lucrative business-to-business accounts you'd think a local newspaper would be eager to lock up with a weekly (or more frequent) column for local computer-using business people.

This doesn't mean the Herald has a bad editor or that another small paper would have reacted differently. I use this anecdote only to point out that it is now easier to start an online publication than for even a highly-qualified outsider to get his or her work into a local paper. Is it any wonder that local blogs and other online niche publications are springing up like mad? And as a corollary, is it any wonder that newspaper circulation and influence continues to decline?

Newspapers need to open up more to the communities around them. They need to stop confining their interaction with readers to advisory board meetings and questionnaires, and allow readers' stories, opinions, and thoughts to become an integral part of the newspaper itself. They should not allow readers to alter the newspaper's own words, as the Los Angeles Times did back in June with their laughable wikitorial experiment. Moderated comments are a much better way to give readers a voice. So are journals that allow (logged-in) readers the same level of freedom they'd have with their own blogs, but also give them the cachet of being published on a "major brand" Web site.

'Local' is the Key Word

The Herald, Herald-Tribune, and many other (if not most) local newspapers seem to think that they are still their readers' primary source of national and international news, just as they were 20 years ago. So that's what fills their front pages most of the time, with local and regional news stuck in a "B" or "C" section.

Welcome to the Internet age, local newspaper (and TV) people. I can and do get my national and international news from the New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, Al Jazeera, Fox News, CNN, and other online media that cover faraway events better and faster than you ever will. I turn to you for local news. You tell me more about last week's home invasion robbery on 11th Street East than they ever will.

It's time for local newspapers to become truly local; to feature local news on the front pages of both their Web sites and print editions, with only a few out-of-the-area stories up front, augmented by an above-the-fold story list that tells readers where to find national and international news on their inside pages.

Add readers' stories and comments to the mix and you suddenly have a local online community, not just a newspaper. This will not take work away from professional reporters, photographers, and editors, who will still be the foundation of local news-gathering. In fact, increased interaction with local community members will probably give them more work than ever, because they will find themselves inundated with news tips and story suggestions they never would have found on their own. Some of these story ideas will be dreck and some will be invaluable. It will be up to the newspaper's editors to find the (rare) nuggets in the huge pile of dross they will need to sort through every day, and up to the newspaper's reporters to follow up on them.

One important thing a community-oriented, Web-based newspaper must do is credit readers for their story leads unless they specifically request anonymity. Another good idea is to pay readers who submit news stories that are written well enough that they can run with only routine editing and fact-checking. Those readers are, in effect, doing a reporter's work, and they should get some sort of compensation for it. Some may even turn into stringers capable of covering government meetings and other events when staff reporters aren't available, and a few of those stringers eventually ought to become staff members. After all, if a newspaper is going to be about, by, and for its local community, shouldn't that community be its primary recruiting ground?

Newspapers Will Not Die

Some newspapers (and newspaper chains) will probably not survive the shift from news-as-monologue to news-as-dialog. Most will, although those that wait too long to adjust will have much of their audience, influence, and ad revenue taken away by more agile competitors.

The smartest newspapers will follow my survival recipe or come up with their own way to become an integral part of their community instead of a building full of people who have been sprinkled with Secret Journalism Powder that makes them better and smarter than their readers. These newspapers will not only survive, but prosper. They may even become the prime outlets for bloggers in their communities, which will increase their readership and ad revenue. Extreme ____-wing bloggers won't want their words associated with the hated Mainstream Media, but most others will be happy to have a widely-read, influential outlet for their work.

Eventually, I expect print newspapers to become "snapshots" of their Web editions taken at 1 a.m. or another arbitrary time, poured into page templates and massaged a little by layout people, then sent to the printing presses, a pattern that has potential for significant production cost reductions if handled adroitly. From that point on, their paper editions will be distributed the same way newspapers are now.

Senior citizens and others who can't afford (or don't want) computers are and will continue to be a viable market. So will commuters who use public transportation. Then there are those -- a substantial part of the population -- who simply prefer reading words and looking at pictures on paper to seeing them on a screen. They will still want physical newspapers, even if they are not as up-to-date or as complete as what they'd get on the Web.

However it is delivered, text will not go away anytime soon. For a fast reader, it is the most efficient way to take in large quantities of information. Most people speak at a rate of between 130 and 200 words per minute. Most college students, according to a Virginia Tech student guide, can read non-technical material at 250 to 300 words per minute, and can increase that reading speed significantly with a little thought and practice. Listening to a city council meeting at 150 words per minute takes much longer than reading a meeting transcript at two, three, four or ten times that speed. Now have a skilled reporter -- whether a staff member, paid contributor or volunteer -- write an intelligent summary of that meeting, and even an average reader can learn what happened there in a few minutes instead of slogging through a two hour audio or video recording.

The Web version of that summary can be posted without waiting for the printing presses and delivery trucks to roll, and can have audio or video snippets embedded in it, but there is no reason not to make the text portion of it available on paper for those who prefer it in that form, unless the paper's editors decide so few people are interested in a city council meeting that it doesn't deserve a spot in the print version -- and tracking page readership on the Web version of the paper before the paper edition goes to press should give those editors a good idea of what they should and shouldn't put on paper.

Printed newspapers will have a significant following for many years to come. They may or may not become "expensive," as Professor Fisher predicts, but they will likely become smaller than they are now, and subscription sales efforts will probably be targeted more closely at groups unlikely to have Internet connections, especially senior citizens.

On the Web side, it's likely that newspapers will end up keeping most of their content free, with specialty sections (and posting privileges) reserved for logged-in users. Whether they'll be able to charge for some or all of their Web content is questionable. I paid $50 for a year's subscription to the NYT's Times Select program, and I don't think it's a good enough value that I'll renew my subscription when it runs out. I would be more likely to pay if I lived in New York and that subscription, in addition to what it gives me now, offered access to additional features like complete transcripts of government meetings. Indeed, I would happily pay at least $30 per year to the Bradenton Herald for a well-organized Web edition that gave me what I now get in the paper edition, plus government meeting transcripts and other useful subscriber-only features.

But if I paid for an online subscription to the Herald, I'd probably drop my subscription to the paper edition. I'd still be the same person, with the same interests, earning power and spending habits. The only thing that would change about me, from the newspaper's perspective, would be my news delivery preference.

The challenge for local newspapers that beef up their Web editions at the expense of their paper versions won't be to keep (or add) readers, but to teach advertisers that the Web, not paper, is the best way to reach their most lucrative potential customers.

This may not be easy, but it will be a lot easier than explaining to advertisers why they should keep spending money in a newspaper that has fewer readers, and less influence, every year.

Aron writes "ASE Labs has written an article on using a light distribution of Linux, Damn Small Linux, to power an older computer. With Linux, older computers can be useful once again for many people. From the article: "The oldest computer I have is a Pentium 266 MMX laptop with 64MB of RAM. Most people would just consider this to be garbage and junk it, and if you brought this in for service where I work, I would agree with you. While this laptop might seem old and out-of-date now, it is small and light. I needed something I could easily carry around, so I figured I would see what I could salvage out of this dinosaur. Windows would have a hard time running on this low-spec laptop, but there are many distributions of Linux that will work exceptionally well.""

Kyusaku Natsume writes "According to the NPD Group, Apple's iTunes Music Store has sold more music than Tower Records and Borders in the U.S., based on sales and download figures for July, August, and September." From the article: "At seventh equal in the chart was iTunes, up seven places on the same period last year. Both Tower Records and Borders slipped a place to seven and nine respectively. Russ Crupnick, music and movies industry analyst for NPD, said he would not be surprised if iTunes was to continue to climb the charts, especially in the run-up to Christmas when iPods are high on many present lists."

1up.com has a lengthy article discussing the possible ways that Nintendo's next console will change the face of gaming. A nice pie-in-the-sky article for a quiet Holiday afternoon. From the article: "... We're sick of waiting, so we came up with a list of hypothetical Revolution game concepts -- some pulled directly from Nintendo's Tokyo Game Show video that showed actors but no real games, others pulled from some of the popular ideas we've heard floating around -- and took them to impartial third-party developers to find out how practical it is for games on Revolution to be more than just gimmicks. Over the next five pages, we talk with developers from Harmonix, Radical Entertainment, Foundation 9, Atlus, and Midway to figure out how many of these hypothetical game ideas that are floating around have the potential to become actual games, and what advantages/problems might come with that as a result of the Revolution's remote control-shaped, motion sensor controller."

beat.net writes "Robert X. Cringely details the plan for all the dark fiber Google has been buying up: "The probable answer lies in one of Google's underground parking garages in Mountain View. There, in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn't just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We're talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid. While Google could put these containers anywhere, it makes the most sense to place them at Internet peering points, of which there are about 300 worldwide.""

Agent_9191 asks: "Recently I've been promoted to what essentially amounts to a project lead role for every project we do, in house. Since my company has run for the past 35+ years with no form of central IT department, there has been no standards put into place for developers to abide by. One of my tasks is to set up standards in how projects will be implemented and produced. Right now I'm more concerned about trying to set up coding standards, so that any developer can jump into any part of a project and be able to figure out what's going on, without wasting a couple hours just to figure out the code. I've come across some documents in this area from a few sources (of course can't remember them off the top of my head). What practices/standards do you use in your workplace?"