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Argon asks: "I need a external drive to transfer bulk data between home and office. I already use a CD-RW for backup, so this drive is going to be used -only- for shuttling data. After investigating various solutions (Zip, Orb, CD-RW etc), I finally decided that a USB hard drive seems to be the best solution all around. I found two good solutions (and believe me this information is hard to find), one by Fantom Drives, and the other by Lacie. However, there is very little information on the web about these drives - reliability, using on Linux etc. For example I can't even figure out if the Fantom drives come with an internal power supply. The Lacie drives seem very nice, they come with a built in power supply and look rugged. (Can't USB devices take power from the system instead of a separate power supply?). Does any slashdotter have experience with these drives - comparisons, recommendations?"

owillis writes "Space.com is reporting that Titan (moon of Saturn)" (and also the setting of a classic sf trilogy) "has mountains, a sea, and rain showers." Details apparently in the latest issue of Science. Cassini will parachute a probe into its atmosphere in 2004, but unfortunately may not be able to retrieve all its data. Let's hope they figure out a fix in the next four years; Titan's on the short-list of plausible environments in our solar system that could harbor life.

Mr.Newt writes "You may wonder why we're here. Britain's Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees, thinks he has it figured out. As a small part of a large multiverse, everything has to be perfect for life as we know it to exist. " Just reminds me of the Python song: "Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's..."

An unnamed correspondent writes: "Since I figure most people on this board are space buffs, just thought I'd send this link about the first space walk at the space station.
2 dollars a day, hehe." They weren't just walking around, though -- they attached antennas and other vital bits. The station isn't yet complete, but it's already getting quite large.

We've been putting off coverage of the US elections for a long time now, but with the election only weeks away, we figure its time to let loose. The stories about the election will be posted under the United States topic, and will stop with the announcement of the winner. Stories that are selected will be very few, so expect to be have submissions rejected. Submissions must have some sort of angle for them to be considered for Slashdot, and we will be brutal: we're not CNN here. And if you don't care about the election, login and disable the United States topic and you'll be free from this. We're starting this off with a link from TOTKChief where you can read NASA Watch's of journal of space-related election news, which is just the first of many issues we think is relevant in this upcoming election. Read it, make up your own mind, and vote goddammit.

Ecyrd writes: "Those fine guys at NASA have figured out a way to hitch rides to space inside magnetic bubbles, creating both an efficient propulsion system and protection from high-energy particles. Sorta taking the Earth's magnetosphere with you as a protective cloak when you go." The propulsion in this case comes not from within, but by using the magnetic bubble as a giant solar sail.

carrier lost asks: "I have to connect to my company's VPN using L2TP. I am masquerading my company-provided Windows boxes behind Linux 2.2.16. I have successfully configured the combination to provide PPTP, but now I have to figure out how to enable L2TP. Has anyone done this? Can you point me to a step-by-step tutorial?"

Paul Boutin from Wired approached me to help them do a Holiday Present list for last-minute shoppers ... but I'm lazy, so I figured I'd ask you guys to help (in exchange for your services, the $750 writers fee will be donated to the EFF to help make sure that the net is still free next Thursday). Anyway, this is part one: The Call For Recommendations. Read on to see what we're looking for. Part 2 will come in December, and it will run both on Slashdot and in the print version of Wired, in time for your last-minute shopping. (Yeah, that's months away, but print moves a little slower then us ;) ) We're looking for suggestions in 3 different price tiers.

• Cheaper Then a Playstation 2 ($300 or less)
• Cheaper Then a Playstation 2's rumored eBay sale value ($301-$1500)
• Unlimited (Mommy, can I have a stealth bomber for Christmas?)

The suggestions posted in this discussion will be milked for ideas for creating "The List". If you post an idea, you run the risk of seeing your name show up in Wired and Slashdot (Santa reads at least one of them right?) and helping distribute Christmas (or fill-in-the-blank with whatever excuse for presents you can come up with in december... Merry Yaksmas! ) cheer to good little boys and girls.

Try to include a URL to a site where more information can be found on your Present Proposal. And try to include helpful information like price, and just why this is a good present idea.

And we'll pick this up in December.

mrmag00 writes: "When I first read this article, I figured that Sega was doing the right thing. However, after reading it again I found that it fits perfectly into Your Rights Online. If I am not wrong, in the U.S. we have freedom of speech, yet Sega is threatening to sue a news site for posting news on releases of illegal Dreamcast games. iSONEWS announced that it has closed its Dreamcast section because of several threatening letters from Sega's attorney. Is this limiting freedom of speech, or is it suggesting illegal activity? There are no actual illegal files on the Web site, just information on when releases of these things start showing up. They are definitely not seeing all of these releases; how does iSONEWS even know if these are being released?" The correspondence makes for good reading.

Logic Bomb writes: "The San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting article about measuring website traffic. This is kind of an obnoxious issue, but it means everything to commercial websites seeking investors. Apparently the figures reported by the sites themselves through analysis of server logs are often much higher than the ones given by firms like Media Metrix (whose numbers I see all the time in articles from Cnet and the like). The basic dispute is over whether sampling, a la Nielsen, is appropriate for the web. It seems counterproductive to purposely use an innacurate statistical measure when exact counts are readily available, but I can't imagine many things easier to fake than a server log. Anyone have a good idea about how to approach this?"

daniell asks: "Does anyone have a number9 revolutionIV working correctly in a MacPPC under either MacOS, Linux or NetBSD? I know that a Voodoo3 PCI card for a PC can be flashed to have its BIOS (x86) replaced with OpenFirmware/OpenBoot (Forth), then you use the drivers and it works on a Mac, under Linux PPC, or MacOS. I figured you'd just have to download the latest Mac firmware for the revolution IV (mine was packaged for a PC, but the card has a sticker on it that says MAC) and flash it in place. This is pretty seemless...the card is detected and updated; going back to PC BIOS works fine too. However, the Mac drivers for the revolution IV claim they can't detect a revIV card, even though the firmware upgrader did. If anyone has a working Mac revIV card, which drivers and or firmware are you using for it and what needs to be done to get it working? Has anyone found a description of what the one jumper on the card does?"

szyzyg writes: "The UK NEO Task Force which was set up last year has finally delivered its report and recommendations on the Asteroid threat. The recommendations include money to build a 3 metre search telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, and more funding for research in the field. The report is written for politicians and makes a good introduction to the subject, including disturbing facts and figures."

SubtleNuance writes "32BitsOnline is reporting in this article that a Montreal, Canada startup called JumpTV.com will launch a service similar to the foiled ICraveTV.com. Using BorderControl.com, a more robust -and controversial- system of assuring a users geographical location, the startup is hoping to succeed where its predecessor failed." It figures out where you are (based on your IP) and then gives you television from you area (if its got it) in the form of a an online VCR. How long will this one last?

fuzzybunny asks: "I've recently been given my turn in the bucket as head tech guy at a startup in Germany. We deal with backend monetary transactions for companies that need to send bills, and as such handle large quantities of personal and confidential financial information. I've been informed that in order to comply with financial due diligence laws here, as well as to guard against sabotage by angry employees (not that we have any), I have to figure out some way to sniff outbound network traffic for stuff that's not supposed to leave the company network."" Internal security is something all network adminstrators will have to deal with at some point or another. Are there methods they can employ to insure that data that's supposed to stay in the network, isn't encouraged to take a nightly stroll somewhere it isn't supposed to without excessively violating the privacy of the users?

"I realize that someone who wants to get confidential information out can easily circumvent any technical measures (copy to floppy, encrypt mail, print out, etc.) However, the idea here is to force someone to take that extra willful step.

Given that I categorically refuse to sniff general network traffic, block URLs, or generally look over people's shoulders, I am looking for a solution that lets me automatically watermark non-ascii files and just sniff for certain binary strings on outgoing traffic, while keeping any non-matching traffic completely anonymous. Any ideas on this?"

yibyab writes "Isn't this just sweet? I'm not a Courtney Love music fan, but I love her moxie. Upside is reporting in this article that Ms. Love wants her share of Universal's windfall from the MP3.Com case." Its pretty funny actually: since universal supposedly sued mp3.com protect the rights of their artists. Ms. Love figures she should be entitled to a slice of hundred million dollar pie. Of course she won't get it, but at least this will prove who the record industry is really out there working for. And I like Hole. I think Celebrity Skin was clean, well produced rock album. There isn't a lot of what I think of as "Rock" coming out any more either so thats saying something.

Pavel Koshevoy wrote an impassioned plea to assist him in figuring out how to ship a package to Russia. You would think that UPS would be able to do this with no problems after seeing all of those commercials on TV, right? Wrong. It appears that if you want to send a package from the U.S. to Russia and you its destination isn't to Moscow, Nizhnij Novgorod, Krasnodar, Novorossiysk, Togliatti or St. Petersburg, then you might be lucky to get a 1 pound package thru. Of course the highest value package UPS will accept is $100. If this sounds fishy to you, then you might want to read the whole story from Pavel, below.

The following words are from Pavel Koshevoy:

About a month ago I got an e-mail from a friend of mine in Khabarovsk, Far East Russia. We were classmates until about 5 years ago, so we brought each other up to date on what we are up to. He recently got his diploma in CS so I asked him if he had a chance to play with Linux. He hadn't and was unwilling to install it because of the shortage of diskspace on his Win98 box. So, I decided to put together an upgrade package for him and did so from new and used parts (total value about $300). Now...how do you ship it?

After talking to DHL with unsatisfactory results, I decided to try UPS. I called them up and ask whether I can ship a $300 package to Khabarovsk, Russia, and be able to pay the duties on that myself. They said yes and set me up with a UPS account which costs $45 a year (to do this with DHL, you have to be a business, no exceptions). Not bad, I thought, so Aug. 22 I shipped the package (after spending hours filling forms, of course) and happily send a tracking number to my friend telling him how he could track it over the Web.

Two days later I check up on the UPS tracking Web page and discover this:

Aug 24, 2000 6:51 P.M. LOUISVILLE INTL, KY, US TRANSFER NOTIFICATION FOR INFO FOR DELIV 5:00 P.M. MOSCOW, RU VALUE OF COMMODITY EXCEEDS LIMITS 3:28 P.M. MOSCOW, RU VALUE OF COMMODITY EXCEEDS LIMITS 2:59 P.M. MOSCOW, RU DESTINATION SCAN 2:59 P.M. MOSCOW, RU FORMAL ENTRY REQUIRD FOR HIGH VALUE SHPT 1:20 P.M. MOSCOW, RU VALUE OF COMMODITY EXCEEDS LIMITS;EXCEPTION RESOLUTION NOTIFICATION-OPEN

So, I call UPS and ask them about my package? The operator tells me that there seems to be a restriction on packages going into Russia, that the value of the package has to be under $100 when it is shipped anywhere except 5 cities: Moscow, Nizhnij Novgorod, Krasnodar, Novorossiysk, Togliatti and St. Petersburg. Packages sent to these five cities can be valued as high as $10,000. Later, another UPS rep calls and tells me that the package is valued over $100 and will not be accepted, and wanted to know if I would pay $164.25 to get it back. Eventually I convince UPS to return my package free of charge, however there was still the question of the original $184.25 charges from UPS for the shippment. Until today (2000/09/13) this was still up in the air. I would call UPS and complain, they would put in an urgent message to my account executive, and nothing would happen. This went on for two weeks. When I finally got a real person who could authorize a refund, she was not willing to do it for the full amount. She claimed that since I had a UPS account, I was responsible for knowing about the $100 limit, never mind that I opened the account with one goal in mind - to be able to send the package and pay the duties so that my friend wouldn't have to. However at this point I was too frustrated with them, so we agreed to go 50/50.

Then she sent me an e-mail which wound me up even more: the $100 limit includes the shipping charges.

This is the first time I was ever told this. Up until now I was going to split my package into three packages and resend them separately. You have to realise that the lowest shipping cost to Russia is $77.50, and that's for a 1 lb. package. Plus, there is a $20 surcharge for shipment to Russia for a total of $97.50. With the $100 restriction in place the value of the package must be at or below $2.50! Something is clearly very wrong here.

Effectively, UPS cannot ship packages of any reasonable value higher than $2.50 to any cities in Russia except the five I have mentioned, Furthermore, when looking through the UPS RATE AND SERVICE GUIDE I could not find anywhere mention of this restriction. No, instead, Russia is put in the same category as Norhtern Mariana Islands, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Solomon Islands. Do all those destinations also have the same restriction on the value of the package?

So, I insisted on the full refund, and I've got it with a warning that this is a one-time deal and they will not do it for me again. Even though I've got my money back, I am still upset at UPS over the grief they put me through. I opened an account with them just so I could send this package and pay duties for it. Their service guide should not even list Russia as far as I am concerned. Even more puzzling is the exception that they have made for the other five cities.

I still want to send this package to my friend, so if anyone has any ideas I would like to hear them, please.

Sincerely, Pavel (Paul) Koshevoy

the80y writes "For some of us hacking everything we own is obligatory. Well for all of us of this nature who own a Palm or Visor check out this Japanese site @ 'Palm de COOL!' it has the most intense customizations i have yet to see. I just wish I was fluent in Japanese not every thing is mirrored in English. Does any one know if there are similar sights in English espeacialy relating to replacement cases (i.e. clear cases) available for the Palm IIIc?" My favorite is the crank to power a palm if your battery dies. Unfortunately I haven't watched enough anime to translate this stuff *grin*. Anyway, you can figure out a lot of this just from the pictures and the english parts.

Step right up ladies and gentlemen and behold, quickies so amazing, that you may not want to stare directly at them. First up, a trio of Microsoft bits: Ethan sent us an RFC for writing RFCs in Word. Russ pointed us to a great entry contained within the microsoft knowledge base. and an anonymous reader noted that boardwatch is selling BillGatus of Borg posters again. You may need a soundtrack for this one: chisox sent a bit about Jem Finer composing a thousand year song (and a machine to play it). If generative music ain't your thing, Jason noted that MC (Stephen) Hawking has made some of his R&B and Rap cuts available in MP3 format. And while it isn't exactly music, Several folks showed us the way to best learn about Semi Conductors: have Britney Spears teach it. wishus's submission is much less educational: he's kissing up to me by telling us that Sarcasta's latest update is in depth study on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. If you need some images to enlighten and amuse, B.D.Mills noted that stinky meat is back if you didn't get enough the first time, Ant sent us the correct use for the new mac cubes, and danfairs sent us a picture of... well, a fire extinguisher. table and chair pointed us to Political Arena, a Quake 3 modwhere you blow up the political candidates (is this treason once one of them gets elected?) If blowing up Bush isn't enough stress reduction for you, einstein has shown us how best to customize your case and void your warrenty in one swing. Of an axe. Kartoffel wrote a CueCat interface for BeOS as well as a Mr T vs. CueCat Comic Strip. Even more offensive then another Mr T vs. episode is a comic featuring Admiral Ackbar debating Napster sent in by georgeha. Last of all, if you didn't know, Spinal Tap is back out in limited release. God what a great flick. Just figured I'd mention it ...

numlumps asks: "Recently, my batteries for my TI-82 ran out of juice. Since there is no environmentally friendly way to dispose of batteries in my area, I figured, why not do away with the things altogether? I figured if it were possible to power my calculator with solar power, I'd never have to buy batteries again, nor would I have to worry about toxic chemicals from old batteries leaking into groundwater and so on. Has anyone built a solar power kit for TI-82 and similar calculators? If so, how do I do it without ruining my calculator?"

spiel writes "There's a piece in today's NYT which points out the flaws in the arguments for increasing the number of H-1B visas. As one of those "older workers", this puts facts and figures behind what I have long believed." It's an interesing dicussion, although I suspect like most of things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.