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Slashback: Lingualism, Cooperation, Re-entry

More information below -- for your edification and amusement -- on black holes (if they exist), Napster (a happy outcome for once), comparitive computer languages (after Chris Rijk's Java / C comparison) and more. Even a (gasp) positive statement about Microsoft. Hope you enjoy it.

What goes up must go SPLOOSH. Detritus writes: "The BBC is reporting that GRO has reentered the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific ocean, as predicted." So just what is the space equivalent of Davy Jones' Locker?

Serbo-Croatian, Swahili, Esperanto. After many spirited comments regarding Chris Rijk's Java / C shootout, Nilsson writes: "John Pierce has done some interesting language performance tests. Instead of benchmarking how a problem can be solved in the fastest possible way he tries to benchmark how an average programmer would have solved the problem in various languages. C, Awk, Java, Perl, Pike and Tcl are tested. You can probably start religious wars with this document." Tools for the job, tools for the job ...

Just like an after-school special. Landaras writes "NYC pointed out in a thread that The Offspring and Napster have reached a very amicable settlement over the whole t-shirt issue link Since you clarified that Napster wasn't suing (it was a cease and decist) you might want to again clarify that the cease and decist has been dropped. In fact, Napster is now helping The Offspring create new products." Writing in with more detail, mishaco pointed out this link to an NME story noting that " Napster have now backed down, allowing the band to sell the material, but only if the proceeds are donated to charity."

If it exists, it blows. Which doesn't suck, necessarily. dthor writes: "The Hubble Space Telescope finds more freaks of space: a black hole that's been switched from suck to blow. Apparently, a black hole in the Virgo cluster has begun to emit largish bubbles of colourful nebula gas (or rather...began to emit hundreds of years ago, but CNN is just now catching up). Read the article, complete with an "interactive" Anatomy of a Black Hole (the regular sucking kind). Neato." [Updated 8 June 12:05GMT by timothy] Note that, as readers like daVinci1980 point out below, this is entirely consistent with current black hole theory and observations. There's not really a "suck / blow" switch on black holes' control panels. That we know of.

How the suits saw it. Duncan Lawie penned -- err, "tapped" -- his account of the UK Linux Expo 2000 in London, and it was at least partly about code, distributions and drinking beer. On the other side of the aisle, meanwhile ... Xolution writes "There's a small article on CNN.com about Linux starting to come into the mainstream."

Out of the goodness of their 8-chambered hearts? Kaufmann writes: "Bruce reports: they've received email from a MS product manager, promising to fix the Interix GPL violation (recently reported on Slashdot as well). That's a relief." Nice to hear; thanks for Bruce and company for the sharp eye and persistence.

2 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Charity by Savafan1 · · Score: 5

    I think that Napster and Offspring should pick paylars.com to be the charity. That way Lars could make money from Napster....

  2. GPF Violation? by ShaniaTwain · · Score: 5

    Microsoft promising to fix a GPF violation!? ..Oh wait.. GPL.. I see. Nevermind.

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